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CRITICAL AND BXEGETICAL 


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(May 24: 





HAND-BOOK 


GOSPEL OF MATTHEW, 


BY 


HEINRICH AUGUST WILHELM MEYER, Tu.D., 


OBERCONSISTORIALRATH, HANNOVER. 


TRANSLATED FROM THE SIXTH EDITION OF THE GERMAN BY 


Rev. PETER CHRISTIE. 


THE TRANSLATION REVISED AND EDITED BY 
FREDERICK CROMBIE, D.D., and WILLIAM STEWART, D.D., 


PROFESSOR OF PROFESSOR OF 
BIBLICAL CRITICISM, BIBLICAL CRITICISM 
ST. MARY’S COLLEGE, ST. ANDREWS. IN THE UNIVERSITY OF GLASGOW. 


WITH A PREFACE AND SUPPLEMENTARY NOTES TO THE AMERICAN EDITION BY 
GEORGE R. CROOKS, D.D., 


PROFESSOR IN DREW THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY, MADISON, N. J. 


FUNK & WAGNALLS 


NEW YORK 1884. LONDON 
10 AND 12 Dey SrrEeer 44 FLEET STREET 
All Rights Reserved 


Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1884, 
By FUNK & WAGNALLS, 
In the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington, D.C. 


PREFACE BY THE AMERICAN EDITOR. 


WueEn we come to the gospel of Matthew we stand upon the thresh- 
old of that history which more than any other has wrought a perma- 
nent change in the thoughts and habits of mankind. In its effects upon 
the world it stands apart from all other histories ever written. What- 
ever is precious and hopeful in modern civilization is derived directly 
from it ; we cannot, therefore, as members of Christian society, approach 
it without certain prepossessions in its favor. Most wisely are we, 
therefore, called upon by Neander, in entering upon the study of the 
gospels, to reject the indifference of science. In the investigation of 
truth all depends upon the spirit in which we work. And as the gospels 
are the very breath of life to us, we can-only investigate them aright 
when we acknowledge that our intellectual and moral being is contin- 
ually nourished by them. To deny the possibility of the manifestations 
of the supernatural, to carp at or to belittle such manifestations as they 
are made known to us in God’s word, are obvious disqualifications for 
the study of revealed truth. The one prepossession with which we should 
approach the study of the gospels is, that ‘‘ Jesus Christ is the Son of 
God in a sense which cannot be predicated of any human being—the 
perfect image of the personal God in the form of that humanity that 
was estranged from Him ; that in Him the source of the divine life itself 
in humanity appeared ; that by Him the idea of humanity was realized.”? ? 
Of this prepossession, Neander says most eloquently, ‘It is one at 
whose touch of power the dry bones of the old world sprang up in all 
the vigor of anew creation. It gave birth to all that culture (the mod- 
ern as distinguished from the ancient) from which the Germanic nations 
received their peculiar intellectual life, and from which the emancipation 
of the mind, grown too strong for its bonds, was developed in the Ref- 
ormation. It is the very root and ground of our modern civilization ; 
and the latter, even in its attempts to separate from that root, must rest 
uponit. Indeed, should such attempts succeed, it must dissolve into its 
original elements, and assume an entirely new form.’ ? 


1 Neander, Life of Christ, Amer. Ed., p. 3. ? Thid. 


Vv PREFACE BY THE AMERICAN EDITOR. 


I think, therefore, that before we let ourselves be Jost in the perplex- 
ities of historical detail, which from the lack of necessary information 
we can, never wholly unravel, we should meditate much upon the higher 
harmony of the gospel collection, by which the four narratives are brought 
into perfect accord. Whether we call Matthew’s gospel Jewish and Luke’s 
Gentile, or whether we contrast Matthew’s as the gospel of the body, 
with John’s as the gospel of the spirit, or whether we dwell on Mark’s 
almost Roman compression of style, we perceive no blur or indistinct- 
ness in the image given us of Jesus Christ. Wesee Him on several 
sides, but the identity of the representation is perfect. In each and all 
Ile is the same sympathetic helper of men, has the same clear vision of 
His mission on earth, gives the same account of His origin and the same 
foretokening of His end, dies the same death, and has the same resurrec- 
tion. There is no jar, no dissonance in the stories told by the evangelists. 
Whatever the discrepancies in subordinate points, the narrative of no 
one of them could have been the creation of the age in which they lived. 
They were incapable of conceiving or of inventing the Messiah whom 
they describe. This sense of the spiritual harmony of the gospels will 
guard us against ascribing difficulties which we cannot solve to blunder- 
ing on the part of the evangelists, or to legends which they have credu- 
lously accepted as true, an error into which Dr. Meyer, despite his great 
exegetical sagacity, sometimes falls. One cannot but wish that modesty 
should be shown in dealing with a history which, though witnessed to 
by the ages, is nearly two thousand years old, for the full explication of 
whose minutiz a thousand collateral facts long since faded from the 
knowledge of men are needed. ‘‘ We do not,’’ says Ebrard, ‘‘ enter 
upon the evangelical history with spyglass in hand, to seek our own 
credit, by essaying to disclose ever fresh instances of what is contradic- 
tory, foolish, or ridiculous, but with the faithful, clear, and open eye of 
him who joyfully recognizes the good, the beautiful, the noble, whereso- 
ever he finds it, and on that account finds it with joy, and never lays 
aside his favorable prepossession till he is persuaded of the contrary. 
We give ourselves up to the plastic influence of the gospels, live in them, 
and at the same time secure to ourselves, while we thus act in the spirit of 
making all our own, a deeper insight into the unity, beauty, and depth 
of the Evangelical History.’’ ? 

An example of the hypercritical spirit which is employed upon the 
writings of the evangelists, as upon no other historical documents, is the 
objection made to the authenticity of Matthew’s gospel, because it 


1 Kritik der Evangelischen Geschichte. Quoted by Ellicott, Life of Christ, 
p. 23, note. 


PREFACE BY THE AMERICAN EDITOR. Vv 


lacks graphic power. We are told that an eye-witness would have had 
a more vivid apprehension of events and would have put more life into 
his account of them, Did the critics who urge this ever consider that 
the vivacity of a witness is not reckoned an element of credibility in a 
court of law? If witnesses were to be believed only as they were vi- 
vacious, the administration of justice would come to a stand-still. Many 
an examiner in court has found clear, consistent truth in a witness who 
was as precise as the multiplication table. And if we were to pro- 
nounce written documents spurious on the ground of a lack of vivacity, 
we should reject some of the most valuable materials of history. Han- 
sard is not very graphic, but it contains the sum and substance of the 
proceedings of the English Parliament, in the period covered. One of 
the most important works in American Ecclesiastical history is the jour- 
nal of Francis Asbury, the first Methodist Bishop ; it is almost as dry 
as Euclid, but is as veracious as if delivered under oath. Vivacity and 
veracity are not necessarily correlated. Tried by the tests of common 
sense, this objection to the authenticity of Matthew’s gospel seems too 
absurd for serious refutation. And yet it is one of a large class of 
cavils which do more credit to the ingenuity than to the candor of 
their authors. Davidson thinks that the nature of Matthew’s occupa- 
tion was unfavorable to lively narrative : ‘‘ As a collector of taxes, we 
should not expect much of the picturesque or imaginative from his pen. 
Accountants are not ordinarily possessed of the best talent for descrip- 
tion. They deal in the exact and formal, in accuracy of detail, or in 
grouping truth of what is analogous.’’ Though we do not place much 
value on this explanation, it may have weight with some. The want of 
necessary connection between vividness and truthfulness is, we conceive, 
a sufficient answer. 

Dr. Meyer’s treatment of Matthew is freer than will be acceptable 
to many American Christians. Especially will his theory of the origin 
of this gospel encounter opposition, inasmuch as it leaves the apostolicity 
of the Hebrew original, from-which our Greek Matthew was made, in 
doubt. Resting upon the supposed testimony of Papias to that effect, 
he holds that Matthew composed a digest of the sayings of Christ, but 
yet not a proper gospel history. This collection of Hebrew sayings 
gathered by Matthew was gradually expanded through the interweaving 
of the historical facts of the life of Christ at the hands of others. 
Matthew is therefore responsible only for those discourses of Jesus 
which are to be found in his gospel ; from whom we have derived the 
interwoven history no one can tell. This theory is convenient for 
Dr. Meyer, because it enables him to reject some portions of our first 
gospel as legendary, and other portions as contradictory of John. Such 


vl PREFACE BY THE AMERICAN EDITOR. 


a bias of opinion should Jead us to weigh all the more cautiously the 
reasoning on which the theory rests. The general testimony of antiq- 
uity is against it; Dr. Meyer refers it to Schleiermacher, who gave a 
new rendering of the words of Papias, quoted by Eusebius. The words* 
of Papias on this point are: Mar@aios piv ovv ‘Efaidt diahéutoo 
ta Aoyta GuvetaSato,' which Dr. Meyer makes to mean that Mat- 
thew arranged the sayings of Jesus, in the Hebrew. It is, however, 

well urged by Davidson that Ta hoyia, neither in its New Testament nor 

its subsequent use, is limited to the sayings or discourses of any one. 

In Romans ii. 2, Hebrews v. 12, and 1 Peter iv. 11, it is used of 
the entire Old Testament, the history of course inclusive. Hence, says 
Cremer, “it is not like 6 Noyos tov Oeov, ‘the word of God,’’ that 
which God has to say, but the term to denote the historical (O. T.) 
manifestation of this.’”? Moreover, in the context of the passage cited 
from Papias, where he speaks of Mark, he uses ta Aoyza as descriptive 
of our second gospel. Davidson thus puts the argument: ‘In speak- 
ing of Mark’s gospel, it is related that the evangelist did not write in 
regular order (ra&éz) the things spoken or done by Christ (ta v0 

tov Xpiotov 7) AeyOévta H wmpayOévra), to which it is imme- 
diately subjoined, that Peter gave Mark such instruction as was neces- 

sary, but not as a connected history of our Lord’s discourses (a@dA* 
ovy @onep Gvvtasiv tav Kupianav moibpevos Aoyiwv). 

Here ta Kupiaxa Aoyie is explained by ta Ux0 Tob Xpiorov 7 
apayOévta 7 eyOévta, both being used synonymously in relation 
to the contents of Mark’s gospel.’’? It is very clear that in this pas- 

sage the discourses are not differentiated from the history ; the one 
term Aoyza is used of both.? 

Still further, it was the conviction of the apostles that the ‘life ’’ 
of their Master ‘‘ was the light of men,’’ and they would not therefore be 
likely to separate His words from His deeds. To show what He was was 
as important to their purpose as to rehearse what He said. Luke tells 
Theophilus that his gospel was an account of all that Jesus ‘* began both 
to do and to teach.’’ John closes his account saying ‘‘that there were 
many other things that Jesus did,’’ proving that full as is his gospel of 
the discourses of our Lord, the acts of Jesus are in his mind an essential 


1 See page 3 seq. 

2 Introduction to the New Testament, vol. i., p. 66. 

8 Dr. Meyer argues that the words ody Gomep ovvTusiy Tov KupLaKOv ToLodpEvog 
Adywwv [* notas though he were making a methodical digest of the discourses of 
the Lord’’] are not the equivalents of rd i706 Tov XpoTod 7 AexGévta 7 mpayGévra 
[‘«the things said or done by Christ”], but Papias is in both clauses speaking 
of the same subject ; the difference is merely in the phrasing of his thought. 


PREFACE BY THE AMERICAN EDITOR. Vil 


part of the record. Matthew’s purpose also of exhibiting the fulfilment of 
prophecy in the life of his Master would compel the recording of the 
working and suffering of Jesus for men in their proper connection with 
His sayings. To show that Jesus was the expected Messiah, it was indis- 
pensable that Matthew should depict Him moving through the cycle of 
labors and sufferings which had been foretold by the prophets. ‘‘ Who 
shall undertake,’’ asks Davidson very pertinently, ‘‘to separate the 
mere Aoyza@ from the facts and circumstances with which they are sur- 
rounded? ‘The attempt has never been seriously made, and we venture 
to aflirm that it is practically impossible. Theorists may pronounce it 
an easy thing ; but the different materials of the gospel are so interlaced 
that they will find it very difficult, if not impossible, to demonstrate the 
truth of their opinion by fairly dividing what they declare to be 
practicable.’?? ~ 

A natural sequence of this theory of Schleiermacher, adopted by Dr, 
Meyer, is the supposition that Mark’s is, in the order of time, the first 
gospel, and that upon it the legendary accretions of Matthew and Luke 
have grown. Under this supposition the testimony of antiquity that 
Matthew wrote first is limited to the Aoyia above described ; and as this 
collection of Christ’s discourses has wholly disappeared, and as the com- 
plete Hebrew gospel of Matthew was a subsequent growth out of this, 
a plausible claim may be made for Mark in point of time. But if the 
theory that the first Matthew was a bare collection of Christ’s discourses 
falls, an important support of the claim of the priority of Mark falls with 
it. The testimony of antiquity must then be applied with all its eviden- 
tial power to the complete Hebrew gospel of Matthew, and the testimony 
of antiquity is that he wrote first. This support being thus taken away 
from Dr. Meyer’s supposition, it might very properly be dismissed. ; 
but it may be well to show other reasons for its untenableness. 

In the first place, it bears evident marks of a controlling bias of opin- 
ion, Dr. Meyer wishes, as we have already said, to dispose of certain 
parts of Matthew aslegendary. Thus he writes: ‘¢ With this assumption 
that Mark is the oldest of the synoptics, the distinctive internal 
character of this gospel is quite in harmony—the omission of all pre- 
liminary histories, the beginning with the appearance of the Baptist, the 
as yet altogether undeveloped narrative of the Temptation, the freedom 
from legendary insertions in the history of the Passion which are found 
in Matthew, and especially the original stamp of direct liveliness and 
picturesque clearness of style and description.’?? The obvious utility 


1 Introduction to New Testament, p. 68. 
* Condensed from pp. 28, 29. 


vill PREFACE BY THE AMERICAN EDITOR. 


of this supposition of the priority of Mark, for the effectual disposing of 
certain portions of Matthew, must for us at least break the force of -Dr. 
Meyer’s arguments. Moreover, in the narrative of the Temptation, Mark 
shows all the evidences of legend, if Jegend there be. He says, ‘‘ And 
straightway the Spirit driveth him forth into the wilderness. And he was 
in the wilderness forty days, tempted of Satan ; and he was with the wild 
beasts ; and the angels ministered unto him’’ (chap. i. 12, 13, R. V.). 
Wherein the account of Matthew differs from this, except in greater 
fulness of detail, it is difficult to see. The same extraordinary super- 
natural agencies are to be found in both; and we may add that it was 
humanly impossible for any Jew to invent the additional cireumstances 
of the Temptation given us by Matthew, 

In the second place, we have reason to be distrustful of internal 
criticism where it is unsupported by external evidence. No better 
example of the futility of such criticism is needed than Dr. Meyer’s 
own account of the relationship of the first three gospels to each 
other. (See his Introduction, pp. 19-31.) Whether the supposi- 
tion be taken that all the three are from a common original, or the sup- 
position that each evangelist made use of the others, the results of 
such attempts to trace the derivation of the three are simply chaotic. 
Dr. Meyer himself admits that the schemes of derivation which have 
been framed upon the supposition of a common written original are 
worthy of note only as evidences of inventive conjecture. No more can 
be said, however, for his own theory, or the theories of others, which 
undertake to show, apart from external testimony, the order in time of 
the synoptical gospels, and the use made by each, of his predecessors. 
Of the six arrangements of the order of these evangelists cited by him, 
every one has the sanction of great names, and each, as far as it is sup- 
ported by internal criticism, is as valid as the rest. We may for this 
second reason also, as well as for the reason of the contradictory testi- 
mony of antiquity, set aside Dr. Meyer’s supposition that Mark’s gospel 
is the first in the order of time, and that Matthew and Luke are fuller 
in numerous details by reason of Jegendary additions to Mark’s report. 

Inasmuch as Dr. Meyer’s solution of the relation of the synoptists to 
each other appears so radically defective, it may not be amiss to pur- 
sue the subject a little further. Its difficulties are freely admitted. 
Nor can we at the best reach any more than conjectural conclusions. 
The objections made by Alford to the supposition that the evangelists 
copied from each other seem to be conclusive. ‘‘ It is inconceivable,” 
says he, ‘‘ that one writer, borrowing from another matter confessedly of 
the very first importance, in good faith and with approval, should alter 
his diction so singularly and capriciously as on this hypothesis we find the 


PREFACE BY THE AMERICAN EDITOR, 1s 


text of the parallel sections of our gospels altered. Let the question be 
answered by ordinary considerations of probability, and let any passage 
common to the three evangelists be put to the test. The phenomena pre- 
sented will be much as follows : first, perhaps, we shall have three, five, or 
more words identical ; then as many wholly distinct ; then two clauses or 
more expressed in the same words, but differing in order ; then a clause 
contained in one or two, and not in the third; then several words identical ; 
then a clause not only wholly distinct, but apparently inconsistent ; with 
recurrences of the same arbitrary and anomalous alterations, coincidences, 
and transpositions. . . . Equally capricious would be the disposition of 
the subject-matter. Sometimes, while coincident in the things re- 
lated, the gospels place them in the most various order, each in turn 
connecting them together with apparent marks of chronological se- 
quence.’’! If the synoptists borrowed from each other, their gospel writ- 
ing was of the most mechanical description. Alford, it seems to us, is 
right in saying that a method of ‘such borrowing can only be explained 
on the supposition of an effort of the evangelists to conceal their obliga- 
tions to each other, a supposition inconsistent with the character of the 
men.’’ Rejecting this, and also the supposition that the three evan- 
gelists were indebted to a common written original which very soon 
perished, we have the remaining one, to wit, that Matthew, Mark, Luke 
drew alike from a body of oral tradition, which had been cast, as tradi- 
tion naturally will be, into a somewhat fixed shape.?_ Whatever may be 
the shortcomings of this hypothesis, it answers as well as any other to 
the facts, and is certainly to be preferred to that of Dr. Meyer, namely, 
that Mark’s gospel is the first in the order of time, and that Matthew’s 
has been shaped out of additions, some of them unhistorical, made to a 
collection of the sayings of our Lord. 

Passing from the question of the origin of the three synoptical gos- 
pels, we come next to Dr. Meyer’s general characterization of Matthew. 
Summarily stated it is as follows: (1) Matthew’s gospel contains many 
indefinite statements of time, place, and other things which are irrecon- 
cilable with the living recollections of an apostolic eye-witness and par- 
ticipator in the events. (2) It lacks clearness and directness in many of 
the historical portions. (3) It lacks historical connection in the citation 
and introduction of a substantial portion of the discourses of Jesus. (+) 
It contains narratives whose unhistorical character must have been 
known to an apostle, such as the legendary history which precedes 
chapter iii., and certain particulars in the account of Christ’s death. 


1 See Alford’s Prolegomena to the Gospels, p. 5. 
*Tbidem, pp. 8, 9. 


x PREFACE BY THE AMERICAN EDITOR. 


(5) It contains an enlarged account of the Temptation, which is not 
apostolic. (6) It contains inaccuracies in its account of the Last Supper 
and the appearances of the risen Saviour, and in these particulars must 
be corrected by John.’ Such an opinion of Matthew necessarily carries 
with it a denial of the apostolicity of his gospel as it has come down to 
us, and Dr. Meyer, as we have shown, consistently denies its apostolicity. 

With regard to the first three of these objections, it is allowable to 
ask, may not a memoir have a purpose? May it not, in following out a 
purpose, omit some points and dwell more largely upon others? If it 
vas the plan of Matthew to give with especial fulness the discourses of 
Christ, will not the omission of minute references to time and place be 
natural? Grote tells us that the pictures given by Xenophon and Plato 
of Socrates show the differences in the character and temperament of 
the two men, and the consequent difference in the design of their ac- 
counts. Xenophon, the man of action, looks at his master on the prac- 
tical side, ‘‘ bringing out those conversations of Socrates which ‘had a 
bearing on conduct. Plato leaves out the practical, and consecrates 
himself to the theoretical Socrates.’’ Grote admits that the two pie- 
tures do not contradict each other, but are readily blended into unity. 
Moreover, Xenophon presents Socrates, as Matthew does Christ, more as 
the positive, didactic teacher; while Plato dwells on the Socratic 
““jrony ’’ by the use of which this great teacher, assuming the attitude 
of an inquirer seeking knowledge, stirred up his hearer to think.? The 
prevailing intention governs the mode of presentation, and this we may 
believe is true of the evangelist Matthew. The fact that Matthew makes 
but brief notice of Christ’s ministry in Judea is as true of Mark and 
Luke as of him, and yet in chapter iv. 12 he mentions a return to 
Galilee, and in chapter xix. speaks of Christ’s departure from Galilee to 
Judea. What motives may have determined the synoptists to give a 
full account of the Galilean life of their Master, and to say less of that 
in Judea, we are not able to determine, but we have no reason, on the 
ground of such a determination, to impeach their credibility as witnesses. 
And asto Matthew’s omission to give exact notice of times and places 
in parts of his gospel, it is a sufficient answer that one principle of 
grouping reduces to a subordinate position other principles of grouping. 
This is true universally of historical composition. If Matthew intends 
to bring together in clusters the discourses of Christ, he will naturally 
pay less regard to the sequence of events as to time and place. ‘‘ How- 
ever much,’’ says Ellicott, ‘‘we may be tempted to speculate on the 


1 See Dr. Meyer’s Introduction, pp. 2, 3. 
* Grote, History of Greece, vol. viii., p. 416. 


PREFACE BY THE AMERICAN EDITOR. Xl 


causes which led’’ to the principle of arrangement, ‘‘this much ap- 
pears certain, that such an arrangement does exist, and can be easily veri- 
fied, if we examine the peculiar structure of the portion of the gospel 
which begins with the fifth and closes with the thirteenth chapter. We 
see, for example, that, on the one hand, we have three large portions con- 
taining discourses, viz., the Sermon on the Mount, the apparently grouped 
and collected instructions which our Lord addressed to the Twelve pre- 
vious to their mission, and the collection of the parables in the thirteenth 
chapter; and, on the other hand, that we have a large collection of miracles 
related in the eighth and ninth chapters, which comprise, with scarcely 
any exception, the scattered events of the period preceding the sending 
out of the Twelve ; after which the narrative proceeds in strict chrono- 
logical order. When we add to this the concluding observation, that, 
singularly enough, we find in several instances careful notices of place 
exactly where the order of time seems most disarranged, it seems almost 
impossible to resist the conviction that the first evangelist was by no 
means unacquainted with the correct order of events, but that he de- 
signedly departed from it, and directed his first attention to his Master’s 
preaching during this momentous period, and then grouped together 
the nearly contemporary events and miracles, with such notices of place 
as should guard against any possibility of misconception.”’ ' 

To say, as in the objection which we have marked (4), that any con- 
siderable part of Matthew is legendary virtually discredits the entire 
gospel. Dr. Meyer’s supposition of an original collection of our Lord’s 
sayings will not save this evangelist’s credit ; for the number of persons 
who are likely to accept the supposition is not great. Assuming with 
the Church universal that the gospel as we have it is an exact reproduc- 
tion in Greek of that written by Matthew’s hand, we are left, if the suspi- 
cion of legend is entertained, to the mercy of the whims of critics. 
Each will find the legendary where his fancy inclines him to see it ; and 
what remains as confessedly historical will be rendered doubtful by its 
connection with the fabulous. Indeed, Dr. Meyer’s assumption of an 
original Matthew which is not our gospel is indispensable to his theory 
of legendary interpolations. With the fall of his theory, the mixture of 
history and legend fails to, be accounted for. So long as we hold fast 
to the conviction that our Matthew proceeded from one and the same 
hand, so long may we presume that the whole is veracious. 

Taking the subject, however, ina larger view, we may ask, What were 
the opportunities for the growth of legend in relation to Christ up to 
the time of the writing of Matthew’s gospel? Dr. Meyer admits that in 


1 The Life of Christ, pp. 150, 151. 


xl PREFACE BY THE AMERICAN EDITOR. 


its present shape it antedates the destruction of Jerusalem (A.D. 70). 
Matthew’s original collection of the sayings of Christ was, he says, 
composed much earlier than a.p. 70, in or about a.p. 40, and in the in- 
teryening thirty years perished, and was wholly forgotten of men. We 
have then barely thirty years for the formation of legends in relation to 
Christ, in a region thickly populated, crossed and re-crossed by great 
Roman roads, and consequently in the enjoyment of every facility of 
intercourse known to antiquity ; ina region, too, whose inhabitants were 
practised in writing, and who were accustomed to the use of historical 
records, and among men who were distinguished for their sobriety of 
speech, and whose Master had promised them that the Holy Spirit 
should guide them into the truth. The placing of the superscription 
over the head of Christ on the cross implies that the crowd gathered 
thereabout were able to read. Itis safe to say that legends do not 
grow up among such a people, under such conditions, or in such short 
space of time. The moral earnestness and soberness of the early prop- 
agators of Christianity precluded the growth of legend. After these 
qualities suffered diminution, and sects arose, on the one side half 
Jewish and half Christian, and on the other half heathen and _ half 
Christian, legends were mixed with the histories of the evangelists. 
That, however, was long after the original witnesses of the facts recorded 
by the gospels had disappeared. 

But as to this whole matter of time, I think we fail to notice how 
Jong a pure tradition may perpetuate itself, with but a single remove, 
from the original witnesses or actors. On the 31st of May, 1884, 
there died in New York City Benjamin Bosworth Smith, senior Bishop 
of the Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States ; in October, 
1832, nearly fifty-two years before, he had been consecrated to his office 
by Bishop William White, the founder of that Church, who had him- 
self been consecrated by the Archbishop of Canterbury in 1787. Thus 
the original testimony to the formation of the Protestant Episcopal 
Church is carried with a single transmission over the space of ninety- 
seven years. When the centennial commemoration of the capture of 
Major André was observed in Tarrytown, N. Y., September 23, 1880, 
prayer was offered, in the presence of the vast concourse of people 
gathered together, by the Rev. Alexander Van Wart, ason of one of the 
original captors. On July 9, 1884, there died in Poughkeepsie, New 
York, Philip Hamilton, the youngest son of Alexander Hamilton, the 
originator of our National Constitution, and almost the founder of our 
National Government. We have thus had, till this year, a witness to an 
event dating ninety-seven years ago, only one remove from one of the 
original actors therein. These instances of a close association of the 


PREFACE BY THE AMERICAN EDITOR. xili 


witnesses to the truth of a historical fact with the original witnesses can 
be readily paralleled in the life of our century. They all go to show 
that original testimony need not pass through along series of trans- 
missions in order to covera hundred years ; and that the chances of cor- 
ruption, supposing the ordinary conditions of veracity to be present, 
have been grossly exaggerated by the adherents of the supposition of a 
legendary admixture with the gospel narratives. But Dr. Meyer would 
have us believe that the legendary additions to the gospel of Matthew grew 
up between a.p. 40 and a.p. 70, during all of which time original wit- 
nesses of the facts of the gospel might easily be still living. But this is 
subjecting the theory of legend to a greater strain than even Strauss would 
be willing to accept ; for he fixes the date of the origin of our gospels at 
a point between a.p. 160 and a.p. 180. He writes: ‘‘ These most 
ancient testimonies tell us, firstly, that an apostle or some other person 
who had been acquainted with an apostle wrote a gospel history, but 
not whether it was identical with that which afterward came to be cir- 
culated in the Church under his name; second, that writings similar to 
our gospels were in existence, but not that they were ascribed with cer- 
tainty to any one individual apostle or companion of an apostle. Such is 
the uncertainty of these accounts, which, after all, do not reach further 
back than the third or fourth decade of the second century.’’* It seemsa 
pity, therefore, that Dr. Meyer should hold on to these shreds of the 
Straussian theory of the origin of parts at least of gospel history, with- 
out the support of the Straussian conditions as to time. Strauss’s as- 
sertion with respect to the time of the composition of the gospels has 
been refuted ; and with that prop gone, his theory of myth and legend 
has nothing to rest upon. 

More specifically Dr. Meyer’s theory of the origin of the first three 
chapters of Matthew may be thus stated. Chapter i. 1-16 was a distinct 
document appropriated by the collectors who added to the original Mat- 
thew; chapter i. 18-25, a second such document ; and chapter il. a 
third, in which are now found, for the first time, the locality and time 
of the birth of Jesus (pp. 57, 58). In general terms, these may be 
described as legendary. The story of the Magi, especially, ‘“‘has its 
profound truth in the ideal sphere in which the Messianic idea surround- 
ed the little known childhood of Jesus with the thoughtful legends, its 
own creation, preserved by Matthew and Luke. The ideal truth of these 
legends lies in their corresponding relation to the marvellous greatness 
of the later life of the Lord and His world-embracing work.’’* To tell us 


1 Life of Jesus, vol. i., p. 62. 
2 Condensed from page 64. 


XIV PREFACE BY THE AMERICAN EDITOR. 


that a statement of history is false in fact and yet ideally true is to leave 
us without solid standing ground. For truth is correspondence to fact, 
and what is false in fact can only be said to be ideally true in the sense 
of being cleverly invented. Dr. Meyer is ready to admit that certain 
«« Eastern astrologers may, according to the divine appointment, have read 
in the stars the birth of the Jewish Messiah who was to be the light of 
the heathen, and with this knowledge have come to Jerusalem,”’ but he 
rejects the star guidance and the murder of the children of Bethlehem 
by Herod. Many, however, will hesitate to accept these suppositions of 
Dr. Meyer when it is seen how far he is carried by them. Consistently 
with his principles, he rejects also as legendary the history of the In- 
carnation as given by Luke, so that, although he holds fast to the fact of 
the Incarnation, all the record of it is for him swept out of existence.’ 
For Dr. Meyer the words of the Apostles’ Creed, ‘‘ He was conceived 
by the Holy Ghost, born of the Virgin Mary,’’ are not expressive of 
certainties. These consequences of the adoption of a legendary theory 
may very properly determine us to draw back from the theory itself. 
But the whole procedure is arbitrary ; we are here in this history in the 
midst of the supernatural ; the miracle of miracles, the incarnation of 
the Divine Logos, is its subject-matter. If we can receive this, how 
can we hesitate to receive the other statements, provided they have the 
stamp of authentic history? And that these opening chapters have 
such stamp is proved by the concurrent testimony of the ancient Church. 
Moreover, if prophecy had promised that Jesus should be a light to the 
Gentiles, it is not extraordinary that some divine guidance should have 
led Gentiles to the place of His birth. Dr. Meyer accepts as authentic 
the statement of Mark : ‘‘ And immediately the spirit driveth Him into 
the wilderness’’ (chap. i. 12), which is in its place as remarkable as 
the statement of Matthew that the Magi were led by a star. 

For ourselves we do not set much store by the astronomical solutions 
of the guidance of the Magi. Yet they show that even as an astronom- 
ical event, the appearance of a new star at this time is supposable. 
But the expectation ofa divine person by the heathen world has not 
perhaps been sufficiently dwelt upon ; and the dispersion of the Jews in 
the far East must have made many heathen scholars acquainted with the 
themes of Hebrew prophecy. But, as Davidson well says, ‘‘ Other 
circumstances combined to induce the Magi to associate the phenomenon 
with the Messiah ; but those circumstances would probably have been 
insufficient, without supernatural influence, to create a settled conviction 


1See pp. 64, 65. 


PREFACE BY THE AMERICAN EDITOR. XV 


of the connection, whence these wise men were led to undertake a length- 
ened journey to Judea. This is in accordance with the fact that they were 
afterwards divinely warned (ypymartisSév tes nar ovap) to return to 
their own country by another way. In them, as the representatives of 
the heathen world, we behold that world as doing homage to the Lord. 
And if such were the significance of the transaction, surely it was not 
unworthy of Deity to interfere in the extraordinary mode implied in the 
narrative. There is no reason for asserting that they distrusted the guid- 
ance of the star, because they asked at Jerusalem, ‘‘ Where is He that 
is born King of the Jews?’’ ‘They had travelled to Judea and its cap- 
ital, Jerusalem, in consequence of the remarkable phenomenon ; and now 
they wish to discover the place in Judea where the Messiah should be 
born. ‘The narrative does not even sanction the idea of the star being 
a general guide to them, by retaining the appearance and probably the 
locality which it had when they first perceived it, to say nothing of its 
moving before them in their long journey. On their leaving Jerusalem 
it became a specific index to the place which they were directed to visit, 
in conformity with a prediction contained in the Old Testament script- 
ures. Even after coming to Jerusalem, they did not mistrust the appear- 
ance, for they are reported to have said,‘‘ We have seen //is star in 
the East.’’ ' 

Considering, therefore, on the negative side the consequences to 
which the theory of Dr. Meyer leads him, and on the positive side 
the testimony of antiquity to the authenticity of the first two chap- 
ters of Matthew, and the harmony of their contents with the promises of 
God to the heathen world, and with the expectation of a Messiah 
by that world, we may reasonably decline to reject these chapters as un- 
trustworthy. As to Dr. Meyer’s objection to the slaughter of the chil- 
dren of Bethlehem, that it was ‘‘ unnecessary and without result,’’ it is 
perhaps enough to answer that this behavior of Herod agrees well with 
his conduct on other occasions, as, for example, in the murder of his 
wife and three sons. It was that Herod of whom Augustus, the em- 
peror, said, ‘* Herodis mallem porcus esse quam filius,’’ ‘‘T had rather 
be Herod’s hog than his son.’’? If his sagacity failed here, it failed 
also on other occasions, when his understanding was blinded by his 
passions. 

The difficulties in Matthew’s genealogy and its apparent want of 
agreement with the genealogy traced by Luke can be admitted, ‘and yet 


1 Introduction to the New Testament, pp. 121, 122. 
* Quoted by Neander, Life of Christ, p. 27, where also see a graphic charac- 
terization of this king. 


4 


xyi PREFACE BY THE AMERICAN EDITOR. 


it does not of necessity follow that the first chapter of Matthew is un- 
historical. Dr. Meyer thinks that the genealogies ‘‘ owe their origin to 
the view that Joseph’s paternal relation was real, and that their original 
purpose bore that Joseph was the actual not the putative father of Jesus, 
because otherwise the composition of a genealogical tree of Joseph would 
have been without any motive of faith. But we must also grant that 
the evangelists, as early as the time when they composed their works, 
found the genealogy with the definite statements announcing the puta- 
tive paternal relationship, and by that very circumstance saw it adapted 
for reception without any contradiction to their belief in the divine 
generation of Jesus. They saw in it a demonstration of the Davidic 
descent of Jesus according to the male line of succession, and so far as 
it was possible and allowable to give such in the deficiency of a hu- 
man father—that is, a sfar back asthereputed father.’’* It may be said, 
however, that what was a good reason for the reception of a genealogy 
would be an equally good reason for the compilation of one by the 
evangelists from the original records. The supposition of Dr. Meyer 
that the genealogies as first compiled showed Joseph as the real father 
of Jesus, is, we think, wholly gratuitous. If it was at all important to 
show that Jesus was of the line of David through his putative father, so 
that legally he was David’s descendant, then it was important enough 
to justify the original construction of the genealogy in that form, And 
if we assume that Luke’s genealogy traces the Davidic descent of Jesus 
through his mother, then the one record of descent is the complement 
of the other. 

On the harmony of the genealogies, I know nothing clearer than the 
presentation of Robinson : ‘‘ Both tables at first view purport to give 
the lineage of our Lord through Joseph. But Joseph cannot have been 
the son, by natural descent, of both Jacob and Heli (Matt. i. 16; Luke 
iii. 23). Only one of the tables, therefore, can give his true lineage by 
generation. Thisis done, apparently, in that of Matthew ; because, be- 
ginning at Abraham, it proceeds by natural descent, as we know from 
history, until after the exile, and then continues on in the same mode 
of expression until Joseph. Here the phrase is changed ; and it is no 
longer Joseph who ‘ begat’ Jesus, but Joseph, the husband of Mary, 
of whom was born Jesus who is called the Christ.’’ To whom, then, 
does the genealogy in Luke chiefly relate? If in any way to Joseph, as 
the language purports, then it must be because he in some way bore the 
legal relation of son to Heli, either by adoption or by marriage. If the 
former simply, it is difficult to comprehend why, along with his true per- 


1 Pp, 44, note. 


PREFACE BY THE AMERICAN EDITOR. XVli 


sonal lineage as traced by Matthew up through the royal line of Jewish 
kings to David, there should be given also another subordinate geneal- 
ogy, not personally his own, and running back through a different and 
inferior line to the same great ancestor. If, on the other hand, as is 
most probable, this relation to Ileli came by marriage with his daughter, 
so that Joseph was truly his son-in-law (comp. Ruth i., viii., xi., xii.), 
then it follows that the genealogy in Luke is, in fact, that of Mary, the 
mother of Jesus. This being so, we can perceive a sufficient reason 
why this genealogy should be thus given— viz., in order to show definite- 
ly that Jesus was in the most full and perfect sense a descendant of David ; 
not only ‘by law in the royal line of kings through his reputed father, 
but also in fact by direct personal descent through his mother.’”? 

In regard to Matthew’s account of the temptation in the wilder- 
ness, Dr. Meyer candidly admits that the acceptance of it ‘‘as a real 
external, marvellous occurrence is a necessary consequence of the denial 
of any legendary elements in the canonical gospels.’’* He therefore 
again falls back upon his supposition of a legendary formation in the 
third chapter of the first gospel. With clearest insight he admits that 
our choice of solutions lies between the real facts and ‘‘ an ideal history in 
the garb of legend brought into shape by the power of the idea.’’ He 
therefore rejects (1) the view which regards the Temptation as a vision 
or a morning dream, and says well that there never ‘‘ occurs in the life 
of Jesus any condition of ecstasy or a trace of any special manifestation 
in dreams.’’ (2) The supposition which transfers the occurrence into 
‘an internal history, which took place in the thoughts and fancy of 
Jesus.’’ This view compels us to admit a liability in the mind of 
Jesus to the internal suggestions of evil, which is offensive to Christian 


1 Robinson’s Greek Harmony of the Gospels, pp. 183-185. 

** Tt is painful,’’ says Ellicott, ‘‘to notice the hardihood with which the genu- 
ineness of these chapters has been called in question, even by some of the better 
class of critics. When we remember (1) that they are contained in every man- 
uscript, uncial or cursive, and in every version, eastern or western ; that most 
of the early Fathers cite them, and that early enemies of Christianity appealed 
to them ; when we observe (2) the obvious connection between the beginning 
of chapter iii. and the end of chapter ii., and between chapter iv. 13 and ii. 23; 
and when we remark (3) the exact accordance of diction with that of the re- 
maining chapters of the Gospel—it becomes almost astonis. ing that even & 
priori prejudice should not have abstained at any rate from so hopeless a course 
as that of impugning the genuineness of these chapters. To urge that these 
chapters were wanting in the mutilated and falsified gospel of the Ebionites 
(Epiph. Haer. xxx. 13), or that they were cut away by the heretical Tatian 
(Theodoret, Haer, Fab. i. 20), is really to concede their genuineness, and to 
‘bewray the reason why it was ity pugned.” (Life of Christ, pp. 65, 66, note.) 

*See p. 98, et seq. \ 


‘ 
\ 


\ 


- 


% 
XVlii PREFACE BY THE AMERICAN EDITOR. 


feeling and contradictory to the testimony of Scripture. (3) The view 
that the tempters were a deputation of the Sandedrim, co-operating 
‘‘ with the sympathetic inworking of the national and world-spirit upon 
Christ’s soul.’’ (4) The supposition that the event was a parable, which 
Dr. Meyer finely says is in contradiction ‘‘to the narrative and alien to 
the style of parabolic address employed by Jesus elsewhere.’’? Dr. 
Meyer does well to exhibit in series these unsatisfactory solutions of 
Matthew’s record of the Temptation, because he shows to what straits 
commentators who reject the simple gospel narrative are reduced. But 
his own solution is encompassed with as many difficulties as each one of 
those we have described. ‘‘ Nothing else remains,’’ he tells us, ‘‘ than 
to explain the narrative as a legend, the contents of which regarded as 
thought possessed historical truth, and which arose among Jewish Chris- 
tians, being derived from the idea of Christ as opposed to the devil.’? ? 
And again: ‘‘ The contents of the narrative certainly belong to history, 
but not as a concrete occurrence with its three individual acts, but as a 
summary reflection of the work of Jesus in His vocation in relation to 
the demoniacal kingdom, without, however, our being obliged to assume 
as an historical foundation any internal temptation taking place in 
thought and any originally symbolic representation of the same, which 
was transformed into actual history in the course of tradition.’’ ? 

This mode of explaining the Temptation leaves the detailed account in 
Matthew without any historical basis. If it be asked whose thought is 
meant in the above statement, we are readily answered by Dr. Meyer, 
the thought of Jewish Christians. We must then imagine, that having 
the bare fact of a temptation of Jesus in the wilderness made known to 
them, they conceived that He must have been tempted thus and so, 
But a pure invention of this sort would show more traces of human im- 
perfection ; it would break down at one or several points by a failure to 
apprehend worthily the relation between the kingdom of evil and the 
kingdom of God. It would lack the dignity of Matthew’s record when 
that record is looked at in its moral aspects. Some absurdity would 
have crept in, as is apt to be the case when men shape out of their own 
imaginings the coming forth of an actor from the invisible world. Say- 
ing nothing of the difficulty of supposing the formation of a legend in the 
short time allowed by Dr. Meyer,* he and those who think with him 
leave us without any satisfactory account of the process of the legendary 
formation. Beginning the narrative of the temptation, we are in the 
clear light of history, when suddenly we plunge into mist ; at some point 
or other we have passed the boundary of the really true, and have en- 


1Condensed from p. 100. 2p. 101. 8 Thirty years, see p, xii. 


PREFACE BY THE AMERICAN EDITOR. xxi 


have introduced the passage in the description of Jesus’s resurrection, 
not in that of his death. It is difficult to conceive of its insertion on 
mythie principles, in the position it now occupies, especially as that very 
position occasions some perplexity.’’ * 

With respect to the setting of the watch over the grave of Christ, and 
the bribing of the guards after the resurrection, Dr. Meyer’s reasons 
for concluding the whole to be unhistorical are : (1) The improbability 
that’ the women would have gone to the grave to embalm the body, if 
they had known there was a watch. (2) The improbability that the 
members of the Sanhedrim would have so little understood their own 
interest as to leave the body of Jesus in the hands of the disciples 
instead of taking possession of it themselves. (3) The improbability 
that Pilate would take no notice of the neglect of duty by his own 
soldiers. We do not consider that these difficulties are insuperable. 
In the first place, the women might easily have been unaware that a guard 
had been placed over the grave. They were not official persons ; they 
did not move in the circle of official persons. Their position was a very 
humble one indeed ; and they doubtless spent the intervening Sabbath 
day in retirement, mourning the loss of Him they loved. In the second 
place, the giving of the body of Jesus to His friends, or the withholding 
it from them, was not in the power of the Sanhedrim. The disposition 
of it was determined by the Roman governor. (Matt. xxvii. 57, 58.) 
And the powerlessness of the members of the Sanhedrim in this regard 
may haye all the more prompted them to ask for soldiers to watch the 
sepulchre. Even though Pilate had weakly yielded to the clamors of 
the Jewish mob, there was enough of humanity in him to incline him to 
give to the disciples of Jesus the privilege of burying their Master. In 
the third place, we must not assume too confidently that we understand 
the state of the governor’s mind. Between Roman contempt for what- 
ever was Jewish, the awe with which the bearing of Jesus had inspired 
him, and the superstition which mysteriously clings to scepticism, and 
is its dark shadow, he may have drifted into a condition of irresolution 
and hesitancy which left him but imperfectly master of himself. Under 
such circumstances he might be willing to accept the story of the 
soldiers as a welcome relief, and might for this reason not care to 
examine it too narrowly. ‘‘ Had he heard,’’ says Davidson, ‘‘ the true 
circumstances attendant on the rising of Jesus from the dead, his fears 
would have been excited, and his conscience rendered doubly uneasy. 
Such tidings must have been disagreeable to his agitated spirit. But 
when he learned that the body had been stolen by the disciples at 


1 Introdrti«-cothe New Testament, vol. i., p. 79, / 
\ 


been! PREFACE BY THE AMERICAN EDITOR. 


night, his fears had not to be allayed, nor were his superstitious feelings 
to be quieted. He felt that the part which he had taken in putting 
Christ to death was unattended by the guilt and impiety in which it 
must have presented itself had Jesus proved Himself the Son of God by 
rising from the dead. Thus the information given by the Sanhedrim 
to Pilate, false though it was, found a welcome reception.”’ ? 

These and all like criticisms need not detract from our estimate of the 
great merit of Dr. Meyer as an expositor of the New Testament. Fifty- 
two years have elapsed since the publication of his first volume, and 
these years have only confirmed the first judgment of his great merit. 
He is independent, yet reverent ; acutely grammatical, yet clear-sighted 
in discerning the spiritual ; and utilizing the labors of his predecessors in 
all the past centuries, his work is ‘‘rich with the spoils of time.’’ 
Considering exegesis purely as a historical science, he seeks the sense 
of Scripture ‘‘ by the positive method of studying the grammar, the 
usus loguendi, and the connection in detail, as well as in its wider 
and widest sense.’’ The result is an exemplar of exegetical tact and 
conscientious research applied to the elucidation of the New Tes- 
tament. In one of his golden sentences he tells us that in the task of 


20 (a 
exegesis, 


we have always to receive what Scripture gives to us, and 
never to give it aught of our own.’’ If he has not always succeeded in 
realizing his lofty ideal, this is no more than comes to all men, for 
supreme excellence is beyond our reach. But to have thoroughly 
mastered his commentary is itself an education in exegesis. It must 
not be forgotten, that when his exegetical works first appeared, myth 
and legend were, throughout Germany, as one might say, in the air. ‘‘ All 
’? was the accepted dictum of scholars, and 
the application of the formula to the Old and New Testaments was 
fearlessly made. The gospel records were examined with an almost pre- 
ternatural suspicion ; and the disposition to concede legendary admix- 
tures with their history was strong, even among orthodox men. That 


history originates in myth, 


Dr. Meyer should share to some extent in this wavering need not 
repel us from him. His exegetical integrity is conspicuous in his treat- 
ment of those parts of Matthew which he thinks have had a legendary 
origin. For he first interprets them on sound principles, seeking for 
their exact meaning, and then expresses his doubts of their historical ac- 
curacy. We see all through these volumes, into which such vast learn- 
ing has been compressed, the working of an honest and thoroughly 
Christian mind, 

We of the English-speaking race realize but imperfectly the terrible- 


1 Introduction to the New Testagrent wal. i., pp. 82, 83. 
J 


PREFACE BY THE AMERICAN EDITOR. p.i.4 


tered the region of the ideally true. Meanwhile the diction ard the 
terms of speech remain the same as in the preceding and following 
chapters of this gospel. No dissecting hand of critic has traced in the 
body of the narrator’s language the lines where the iron and the clay 
refuse to become incorporate. There is force in Ellicott’s exegetical 
judgment on this point : ‘‘It need scarcely be said that all such opinions 
—whether the Temptation be supposed a vision especially called up, or a 
mere significant dream—clearly come into collision with the simple yet 
circumstantial narrative of the first and third Evangelists ; in which not 
only is there not the faintest hint that could render such an opinion in any 
degree plausible, but, on the contrary, expressions most studiously chosen 
(avnyOn, Matt. iv. 1; #yero, Luke iv. 1. Comp. Mark i. 12, 
énfadrer; mpooedOw@yv, Matt iv. 3; zapadapufaver, ver. 5; 
avayay or, Luke iv. 5; azéorn, ver. 13) to mark the complete oljee- 
tive character of the whole..... I could as soon doubt my own exist- 
ence as doubt the completely outward nature of these forms of tempta- 
tion, and their immediate connection with the personal agency of the 
personal Prince of Darkness. I could as soon accept the worst statements 
of the most degraded form of Arian creed as believe that this temptation 
arose from any internal strugglings or solicitations. I could as soon admit 
the most repulsive tenet of a dreary Socinianism as deem that it was en- 
hanced by any self-engendered enticements, or hold that it was aught else 
than the assault of a desperate and demoniacal malice from without, that 
recognized in the nature of man a possibility of falling, and that thus far 
consistently, though impiously, dared even in the person of the Son of 
Man to make proof of its hitherto resistless energies.’’* As Dr. Meyer ac- 
cepts the doctrine of the personality of the Satan (see p. 102), his theory 
of the Temptation seems the more difficult to reconcile with sound exe- 
getical principles. 

The discrepancies between Matthew’s account of the time of the last 
Passover and John’s are treated by Dr. Meyer in his commentary on 
the fourth gospel, and therefore do not come within the scope of this 
preface. It only remains to notice the rising of the dead from their 
graves, which, according to Matthew, accompanied the death of Christ 
and the bribery of the guard appointed to watch His tomb. Of the 
former of the two events Dr. Meyer thus speaks : ‘‘ The opening of the 
graves is to be regarded as divine symbolism, according to which the 
death of Jesus is to be understood as preparing the way for the future 
resurrection of believers, to the eternal life of the Messianic kingdom. 
The thing thus signified by the divine sign was so moulded and ampli- 


1 Life of Christ, pp. 112, 113, text and notes. 


xX PREFACE BY THE AMERICAN EDITOR. 


fied in the course of tradition, that it became ultimately transformed 
into an historical incident: 7oAAa@ G@pata TOY nENOLfL. ay lov 
nyépOn.’’* The supernatural opening of the graves is, therefore, con- 
sidered by our learned author to be historical, but the actual rising of the 
dead to be legendary. But if we can believe that the graves of dead 
saints were supernaturally opened, there can be no difficulty in also 
believing that their occupants came forth. The divine symbolism which 
Dr. Meyer sees in the first fact is only made more complete by the 
additional fact. It is easier to reject the whole of this passage of the 
gospel than to make an excision of one of its parts. The latter course, 
in the absence of manuscript authority, is arbitrary ; the former is 
entirely consistent for those who are disposed to reduce the super- 
natural in the life and death of Jesus to a minimum. It is true 
that this event as given by Matthew was made, several centuries after, 
the basis of extravagant legends ; but the same is equally true of the narra- 
tive of the crucifixion itself. These subsequent legendary insertions bear 
too on their face the marks of being inventions. Thus in the Acta Pilati, 
cited by Dr. Meyer, the high priests being angry with Joseph of Ari- 
mathea, sentence him in these words: ‘‘ For the present remain under 
guard, but on the Lorp’s pay early you will be delivered to death.”’ ? 
This shocking anachronism shows at once that the so-called Acta Pilate 
isa forgery. We do not, therefore, attach as much importance as Dr. 
Meyer seems to do to the engrafting of legend upon this passage of 
Matthew’s gospel ; it proves nothing in the face of the harmony of the 
passage with the rest of the first gospel, and the support which it has in 
the testimony of ancient manuscripts.* 

Upon the improbability of a mythic origin of this account, Davidson 
reasons very pertinently : ‘‘ It cannot be said, with any degree of prob- 
ability, that the two verses describing the unusual phenomenon of 
some persons awaking from their graves, and going into Jerusalem, are 
spurious. Neither external nor internal testimony can be adduced in 
favor of that hypothesis, advocated as it has been by Stroth and Bauer. 

Other writers have resorted to a mythic explanation of theevent. In the 
Epistle to the Colossians, and in the Apocalypse, Christ is declared to 
be the first-born from the dead, and, therefore, the mythic theory would 


1 Condensed from note on chap. xxvii. 51, 52. 

? See works of Huidekoper, vol. ii., p. 137. 

8 On this point Ellicott says very pertinently : ‘Ifthe Evang. Nicod. tends 
to prove anything, it is this: that the ancient writer of the document regarded 
Matthew xxvii. 52 as an authentic statement, and as one which no current tra- 
ditions enabled him to embellish, but which was adopted as a convenient 
starting-point for his legendary narration,’’ ‘‘ Life of Christ,” p. 324. 


PREFACE BY THE AMERICAN EDITOR. XXlil 


ness of the conflict through which the Scripture records have passed in 
Germany during this century. We should not, therefore, be surprised 
to find the marks of the conflict in the opinions of German scholars with 
whose spirit we are most in sympathy. Even the loving and lovable 
Neander, who has done so much in the sphere of Church history to 
vindicate the leading principles of evangelical theology, shares with 
Dr. Meyer the opinion that parts of Matthew are legendary.’ But our 
faith in the historical accuracy of the first gospel need not be dis- 
turbed by these deflections from the right line of thinking, and our 
criticism may be well disarmed by Neandcr’s confession of the dimness 
which surrounded him ‘ growing out of the errors and defects of an age 
just freeing itself from a distracting infidelity.’? ? And in the same 
sweet temper Dr. Meyer sees in the spread of German theological litera- 
ture throughout the world that ‘‘ it communicates what has been given to 
it, in order, by the mutual working of the spirit, to receive in its turn 
from abroad ; stimulates, so far as in it lies, in order that it may itself 
find stimulus and furtherance, instruction and correction ; and in all this 
lends its aid, that the divided theological strivings of the age, and the 
various tendencies of religious national character, may be duly brought 
closer together, and united in the eternal focus of all general science, 
which is truth and nothing but truth.’’ ° In this spirit, so thoroughly 
Christian, we can receive the results of the laborious German study of 
the Old and New Testaments. And we need the results of these labors ; 
for our German brethren have been driven by the stress of the conflict 
in the midst of which they have lived to a broader and deeper explora- 
tion of the sources of religious truth. Where all has been put in peril 
—even our most precious spiritual possessions—all has been dared to 
save from peril. And if scholars like Dr. Meyer show here and there a 
scar, we know that they have fought a good fight. And if German 
theological literature is ready to receive what we have to give, we can 
heartily welcome the rich treasures which it dispenses to us with such a 
liberal hand. 

The Rey. Dr. J. A. Spencer, of New York, has added translations to 
the Greek and Latin quotations, and the Rev. G. F. Behringer, of 
Brooklyn, N. Y., has prepared the Topical Index and exercised a gen- 
eral supervision of the work while passing through the press. 


GEORGE R. CROOKS. 


Drew Seminary, Mapison, N. J., 
July 20th, 1884. 


! See, for instance, his Life of Christ, pp. 26, 27. 
2 Address to his Christian Brethren in the United States, Life of Christ, x. 
3 Preface to the American edition of the Epistle to the Romans, p. viii. 


PREFATORY NOTE BY THE EDITOR. 


Tue translation of this first volume of the Commentary on Matthew 
has been made from the last (sixth) edition of the original, which had 
been carefully revised by Dr. Meyer himself, and which has been re- 
cently edited from his manuscript, with very slight alterations, by Dr. 
Albert Ritschl, of Géttingen. The translator of the portion extending 
from the sixth chapter to the end is the Rev. Peter Christie, of Abbey 
St. Bathans, who has performed his work with care and ability ; but 
the whole has been revised and carried through the press by myself. 
As in the volumes of the series already published, reference has been 
made throughout to the English translations of Winer’s and Buttmann’s 
Grammars of New Testament Greek, and frequently also to translations 
of other German works, quoted or referred to by Dr. Meyer. For the 
copious Bibliographical list prefixed to the book, I am indebted to my 
learned friend and co-editor Professor Dickson, who has also translated 
the biographical sketch of Dr. Meyer by his son, which accompanies it. 

For a statement of the circumstances which have led to the issue of 
the Commentary of Dr. Meyer in an English translation, of the special 
grounds for preferring it to the kindred work of de Wette, and of the 
reasons which have induced the editors to undertake the work of revis- 
ing the several portions of the translation in the interests of technical 
accuracy and uniformity, the reader may be referred to the ‘‘ General 
Preface,’’ prefixed by Dr. Dickson to the volume first issued, viz. 
Fomans, vol. I. 

It is only necessary to say further, that the editors are not to be held 
as concurring in Dr, Meyer’s opinions on some matters embraced in 
this volume, such as his theory of the original composition of the 
Gospel, and his views regarding the credibility of certain portions of 
the history. 


FREDERICK CROMBIE. 


St. Mary’s Coniece, St, ANDREWS, 
31st October, 1877. 


BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICE OF DR. MEYER 


BY HIS SON, DR. GUSTAV MEYER, Pux.D. 


My father, who died on the 21st June 1873, was born in Gotha on 
the 10th January 1800. On the 12th January he was baptized in the 
St. Margaret’s Church, and received the names Heinrich August 
Wilhelm. His father was shoemaker to the ducal court, and was a 
native of Riigheim in Lower Franconia. An old family document,—a 
certificate of my grandfather’s baptism,—composed with the pleasing 
diffuseness of the olden time, states that Riigheim was “‘ under the 
dominion of the most reverend Prince and Lord of the Holy Roman 
Empire, Lord Francis Louis, Bishop of Bamberg and Wiirzburg.’’ It 
isa peculiarity of this document, drawn up in 1781, that the name is 
never written Meyer, but always Majer or Mayer. My late father was a 
tender child, and a crayon portrait which has been preserved, represent- 
ing him when a boy of about seven years of age, shows a pale and deli- 
eate face—in which, however, the large, earnest-looking eye suggests an 
active mind. His bodily training was anything but effeminate. He 
practised swimming and skating, not merely as a schoolboy and a 
student, but at a much later age, when such exercises had long been 
given up by many of his companions, And it was in truth not a time 
for rearing boys tenderly. One of his earliest recollections was of the 
autumn of 1806, when, not quite seven years old, he saw the prisoners 
from the battle of Jena confined in the churches of his native town. 
Gotha lay in the line of retreat of the beaten French in the days of 
October 1813 ; and he was an eye-witness of the way in which the 
Cossacks drove before them and made havoc of the magnificent Imperial 
Guard. 

He received his school training, in the Gymnasium of his native town, 
which had a reputation passing far beyond the narrow bounds of the 
little province, and could point to pupils drawn from the most remote 
regions. His teachers were Déring, LKaltwasser, Galletti, Kries, 
Schulz, Regel, Uckert, Rost, and eventually also Bretschneider as re- 


XXV1 BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICE OF DR. MEYER. 


ligious instructor. At the Gymnasium of Gotha he laid the foundations 
of his classical culture ; there he first acquired a deep and thorough 
familiarity with the laws of the Greek and Roman languages,—a 
tenacious adherence to which was a characteristic feature of his later 
labors, and not unfrequently brought on him the reproach of pedantic 
stiffness. While he greatly lamented the neglect of modern languages 
during his days at school, he was yet far from granting that the methods 
of instruction pursued in the Gymnasia of more recent times, or the 
requirements of the Adbcturient examination, were preferable to those of 
his youth. He conceived that in former times there were greater 
facilities for each individual following out his own course of self- 
development. It was not to be denied that an Abiturient of the present 
day, after having passed a good examination, could show a greater ex- 
tent and wider range of knowledge ; but it was to be feared that this 
knowledge was more of an encyclopedic nature, and excluded thor- 
oughness and depth. Je this as it may,—and the question is not even 
now to be held as decided,—the grammar-schoolboy, August Meyer, 
who had gradually been advanced to the highest class and to the fore- 
most place in it, must have been esteemed by his teachers as one who 
had well bestowed his time and strength on following out his predomi- 
nant bias—bordering perhaps on one-sidedness—for the classical 





languages. 

The third centenary celebration of the Reformation was duly honored 
even in the Gymnasium at Gotha. To Meyer was entrusted the Latin 
address on the occasion, which was to be delivered in hexameters. 
There lies before me the third edition of Heyne’s T%tbullus, which was 
presented to him by some of the citizens ‘‘ in celebration of the jubilee 
festival of the Reformation, 1817, upon the recommendation of his 
teachers.’ Half a year after this incident, important at all events in 
the career of a grammar-schoolboy, namely, at Easter 1818, he passed 
his Abiturient-examination, and entered the University of Jena to study 
theology. ‘‘ These were different times,’’ he was wont to say, ‘‘ from 
the present. Everything was much simpler and less luxurious than 
now, when the course of study costs more than twice as much, and yet 
not twice as much is learned.’’ All honor to the greater simplicity of 
those days ; but unless money had had a far greater value then than 
now, such a course of study, moderate as it was in price, would not 
have been possible for him even with the strictest frugality. The father 
of the young student of theology had sustained a serious loss of means 
by the continuance of the troubles of war, the quartering df troops in 
large numbers, severe sickness, and other misfortunes." His son cost 
him at Jena 80 thalers (£12) half-yearly. He had no exhibition, no 


BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICE OF DR. MEYER. XXV1l1 


free board ; only he had, of course, mostly free clothing, the renewal of 
which was as arule reserved for the holidays. And yet he was withal 
no recluse. The charm of the fresh student-life, which, just after the 
War of Liberation, burst into so fair a bloom, had strong attractions for 
him. He was a member of the great Burschenschaft. Most leaves of 
his note-book exhibited the crossed rapiers with the G. E. F. V. of the 
fraternity. Thoroughly simple must have been the social life of that 
joyous academic youth of 1818 and 1819! Should these lines perhaps 
meet the eyes of one or another of my father’s old comrades, especially 





in Thuringia,—and some are still there, he was wont to say, but not 
many,—they will possibly awaken recollections of the cheap Commerse 
in the public market, of the drinking and guitar-playing, of the rapier 
duels fought out in the open street, of the journeyings home at vacation 
time,—fifteen hours on foot from Jena to Gotha, without putting up 
for the night, not seldom in bad weather, in snow and rain. Many who 
shared these journeys are doubtless no longer surviving. One who, 
on account of his ever-ready knowledge of Greek, was called by his 
friends the Count of 7, equally prepared for conflict with the rapier 
or with the tongue, was especially often mentioned by him, and held 
in sincere esteem. He was called away long before him, and died uni- 
versally respected as a Head-master in our province. After the unhappy 
deed of Karl Sand in March 1819, and the dissolution of the great 
Burschenschaft which thereupon ensued, my father took no further part 
‘in student-life, but applied himself all the more zealously to those 
studies of which he had not hitherto been neglectful. His theological 
teachers were Gabler, Schott, Danz, Baumgarten-Crusius, Kosegarten 
the Orientalist, Eichstaidt the philologist, Fries the philesopher, and 
Luden the historian. As he was fond of recalling—and not without re- 
gret that their days were over—the lectures read in Latin, such as 
Schott’s, he often also, and with pleasure, called to mind the discussions 
on theological subjects, which were started by the young students even 
in their walks and were conducted in Latin. He felt himself least 
attracted by the prelections on philosophy ; his whole bent was already 
at that time decidedly towards the field of languages. 

After a curriculum of two years and a half, at Michaelmas 1820 he 
left the University ; and entered, as domestic tutor, the educational in- 
stitution of Pastor Oppermann, who subsequently became his father-in- 
law, at Grone near GOttingen. The time for young theologians then 
was similar to whatit is now. They were wholly, or almost wholly, 
spared that long and laborious career of domestic tutorship, which led 
many a one, amidst the subsequent crowd pressing forward to the study 
of theology, to lose heart and hope. At Easter 1821 he underwent his 


XXVlll BLOGRAPHICAL NOTICE OF DR. MEYER. 


examination as candidate at Gotha, and soon he had the choice between 
an appointment in the Gymnasium of his native city and a pastorate. 
He chose the latter ; and in December 1822 was nominated as pastor at 
Osthausen in the district of Kranichfeld, which subsequently (1826) was 
ceded, on the division of the ducal inheritance, from Gotha to Meinin- 
gen. In January of the following year, when exactly twenty-three 
years old, he was installed as pastor in Osthausen ; and in July of the 
same year he brought home from Grone to fair Thuringia his youthful 
bride. How soon afterwards came a change of times! To the candi- 
dates who not long thereafter appeared in numbers exceeding the 
demand,—men, who had but finished their examinations at the age of 
thirty, whose hair not seldom began to get suspiciously grey while they 
were still domestic tutors, and who counted the duration of their 
aflianced state at least by /uwstres,—it must have sounded almost like a 
fable, that a young theologian had established for himself a home of his 
own as an independent pastor at the age of twenty-three. God, who be- 
stowed on him this great favor, granted to him also a duration of the 
married state for almost forty years. 

The pleasant leisure which fell to the young pastor’s lot in a com- 
munity of about 400 souls—for which down to the close of his life he 
cherished the utmost affection—did not make his mind indolent or his 
hands idle. It was natural that so juvenile a pastor should still for a 
time address himself to private study before coming before the public 
as an author, and all the more so in his case, seeing that in 1827 he 
went to Hannover for the purpose of passing a Colloguiwm, with a view 
to acquire the privilege of naturalization in the then existing kingdom. 
But as early as the year 1829 there was issued by Vandenhoeck and 
Ruprecht—the esteemed publishing-house, ‘with which he so long main- 
tained most friendly relations—the first portion of his work on the New 
Testament, containing the Greek text and the German translation. In 
the year 1830 followed his Libri symbolici Heclesiae Lutheranae. In the 
same year—as a fruit of his Colloquium, and probably also of the services 
already rendered by him in the field of theological literature—he was ap- 
pointed as pastor at Harste, near Gottingen. Although he had paved 
the way for such a step by acquiring naturalization in 1827, and had by 
his marriage with the pastor’s daughter in Grone become half a Han- 
noverian, and indeed a man of Géttingen, the breaking up of the home 
established seven years before at Osthausen was a sore trial to my 
parents. On the day after Christmas, amidst a severe snowstorm, when 
they doubly missed their wonted comfortable abode, they set out on 
their perilous journey from Osthausen amidst tears shed alike by those 
departing and by those left behind. It was not till the third day that 


BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICE OF DR. MEYER. vo. li< 


the hardships and perils of the winter-migration were over. Their new 
relations were not at first of too agreeable a nature. They needed to be 
gradually inured to their new position in life before they could feel 
themselves at home in it. With the far less perfect communication at 
that time between the several districts of our country, and with the 
loose connection subsisting between one portion of the Germanic Federa- 
tion and another, a journey from the Meiningen to the Gottingen district 
was amore distant, and a transference of abode thither in more than 
one respect a more difficult, matter than at present. Yet, in spite of 
the many new impressions which had to be formed and assimilated,— 
the power of which did not permit him in the remotest degree to antici- 
pate that he would part from this community also with deep pain,— 
my father did not allow his scientific labors to lie in abeyance, In the 
beginning of the year 1832 appeared the second part of his work on the 
New Testament, containing the Commentary. The long time that 
elapsed between the first part (1829) and the second is explained by 
*“the change of his place of abode, and the edition of the Libri 
symbolici, issued in the jubilee-year of the Augsburg Confession’’ 
(Preface, 20th Jan. 1832). The Commentary, according to the 
original plan, was to form two divisions, the first of which was to ex- 
tend to the Book of Acts (inclusive), and the second was to embrace 
the remaining books. That this idea proved a mistaken one ; that the 
work has extended to 16 divisions ; that his own strength did not 
suffice to overtake the constantly increasing labor ; that new editions 
were continually needed ; that an English translation of it is in the 
press, 
has retained for more than forty years among the theological public of 





all this is evidence of the rare favor which the Commentary 


all schools. It would be surprising, if in so long a period the stand- 
point of the author, diligent as he was and unwearied in research, had 
not undergone modifications ; and that in the covrse of years his views 
did become more positive, is a fact well known to his readers ; but to 
the principle of grammatico-historical interpretation, on which so much 
stress is laid in the Preface of 1832, he remained unalterably faithful 
down to the close of his life. And as a zealous representative of this 
school he will maintain his place in the history of exegesis, whatever 
new literary productions time may bring to light. 

With a rare activity of mind, he had the skill to lay hold of whatever 
—whether from friends or from opponents—could be of service to him. 
The circumstance that he mastered without difficulty the contents of 
the most voluminous Latin exegetes, and most conscientiously consulted 
the old Greek expositors, cannot surprise us, when we consider his pre- 
ponderant leaning to classical studies ; but the facts, that he used with 


XXX BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICE OF DR. MEYER. 


ease commentaries written in English and French, that he never left out 
of view works composed in Dutch, and that he made himself master of 
Gothic so far as in a critical and exegetical point of view he had need 
of it,—all serve to attest alike his uncommon qualifications and his iron 
diligence. | Everything new that made its appearance in the field of 
theological literature, especially in the domain of exegesis, excited his 
interest ; sparing in self-indulgence otherwise, he conceived that, so far 
as concerned the acquisition of books, he had need to put a restraint on 
himself ; as regards edition, place of publication, size, rarity, and the 
like, he had an astonishing memory. The administration of a large and 
liberally supported library seemed to him to be an enviable lot. The 
theological public hardly needs to be told that studies so comprehensive 
in range required of course years, and many years, to reach maturity, 
and that between the Commentary on Matthew of the year 1832 and 
the fifth edition of the same work in 1864, a very considerable differ- 
ence in every respect is discernible. Among the mss. left behind him 
I find a sixth edition of his Commentary on the Gospel of Matthew, 
which, although according to his own expression not yet quite ripe for 
the press, to judge from a superficial glance through it, deserves in 
every respect to be pronounced an improvement on its predecessor. He 
was in the habit of long polishing at a work and correcting it, before 
he marked it ‘‘ ready for the press.’’ The ninth division—the Epistles 
to the Philippians, Colossians, and Philemon—was being printed in a 
fourth edition, when an incurable visceral disorder threw him on his 
last short, but painful, sickbed. 

It was beyond doubt in great measure a result of the favor which 
his Commentary enjoyed, that the author was at a comparatively early 
age withdrawn from the quiet work of a rural pastor and called to Hoya 
as superintendent at Michaelmas 1837. In this position as Aphorus and 
as preacher in a country town, whose inhabitants must be presumed to 
have had other claims than those of simple villagers, two aspects of his 
nature had opportunity to show and further develop themselves—that 
of the practical man of business, and that of the pulpit orator. In the 
first-named relation he was thoroughly exact ; his principle was ‘‘ to be 
always ready.’’ ‘To postpone disagreeable affairs, to put off irksome 
reports, was just as impossible for him as to leave accounts unpaid. 
He vied with his fellow-commissary, the no less exact von Honstedt, 
former high-steward at Hoya, in the quick despatch of the business on 
hand, and the art of gaining something from the day—namely, by 
early rising. Asa pulpit orator he strove honestly and with success to 
expound the word of the cross in plain and simple form as the power of 


BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICE OF DR. MEYER. eet 


God unto salvation, and he was listened to with pleasure so long as he 
acted as a preacher (till Midsummer 1848). 

His ministry in Hoya lasted only four years, during which the pub- 
lication of his Commentary went on with unabated vigor. At 
Michaelmas 1844 he was called to Hannover as Consistorialrath, Superin- 
tendent, and chief pastor of the Weustddter St. Johanniskirche. I well 
remember the many attestations of unfeigned affection and cordial attach- 
ment, when on the clear sunny autumn day, thirty-two years ago, he 
departed from Hoya to enter upon the more stirring and more respon- 
sible career before him in the capital. None but a man in the prime of 
his vigor could do justice at once to his position in the supreme 
ecclesiastical court, and to the duties of superintendent and pastor in a 
community of more than 5000 souls. He had but little ministerial help 
in his pastoral office. It was his duty to preach every Sunday fore- 
noon ; a scantily paid court-chaplain, who was obliged to make up the 
deficiency of his income by giving private lessons, had regularly the 
service in the afternoon, and was expected, moreover, to act for him in 
any pastoral duties when at any time he was hindered from discharging 
them. But how often it happened that he was called away even from 
the sittings of the Consistory to administer baptism to infants ap- 
parently dying and the communion to the sick, because his court-chap- 
Jain was under the necessity of giving private lessons somewhere ! It 
required, in truth, a stubborn following out of his principle of ‘* being 
always ready’’ (as in fact it was his wont, almost without exception, to 
prepare for his sermon even on the Monday), to remain faithful to his 
vocation as an exegete amidst this burden of work. It was again the 
early hours of the morning which put him in a position to do so. He 
obtained an honorable recognition of the services thus rendered at 
Easter 1845, when he was nominated by the Facnlty at Gottingen 
Doctor of Theology, ‘‘ propter eximiam eruditionem artemque theologi- 
cam eamque praecipue editis excellentissimis doctissimisque in libros 
Novi Testamenti commentariis, quibus consensu omnium de ornanda et 
amplificanda hermeneutica sacra praeclarissime meruit, comprobatam.’’ 

Hitherto the lines of the son of the court-shoemaker in Gotha had 
fallen in pleasant places ; but he was now to see days in which the hand 
of the Lord was to be laid heavily upon him. It was doubtless in part 
a result of the unusual demands made on his strength—to which was 
added his taking part in the Church Conference at Berlin in the winter 
of 1846—that at the end of February in that year he was stretched by a 
severe visceral affection on a sickbed, which long threatened to be his 
last. But the goodness of God averted the danger, and preserved him 
still for a number of years to his friends and to theclogical science. 


Xxx BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICE OF DR. MEYER. 


The strenuous care of the now long departed Hofrath Holscher was suc- 
cessful in putting him on the way to slow recovery, which was 
accelerated in a most gratifying manner by a visit to the mineral waters 
of Marienbad. But the old indomitable strength was gone. This he 
perceived only too plainly, even when he had for the second time grate- 
fully felt the benefit of the Bohemian medicinal springs. His weak- 
ened health imperatively demanded a change in his manner of life, and 
a consequent diminution of the burden of labor that lay upon him. 
Henceforth he became—what he had never previously allowed himself 
the time for—a habitual walker. Every morning between 7 and 8 
o’clock, after having previously devoted some hours to exegesis, in wind 
and storm, summer and winter, even on the morning of the Sundays 
when he had to preach, he took his accustomed walk, to which he 
ascribed in no small degree his gradual recovery of strength. At the 
same time he became a zealous water-drinker, and he called water and 
walking his two great physicians. The lightening of his labor, that 
was so essentially necessary, came at Midsummer 1848, when he re- 
signed his duties as Ephorus and pastor, in order to devote himself 
henceforth solely to the Consistory, in which, however, as may readily 
be understood, the measure of his Jabors became greater in point both 
of quality and of quantity. Many of the clergy of our province belong- 
ing to the days when there were still three examinations to be passed 
and that in Latin, will recollect with pleasure the time when he con- 
ducted the preliminary, and regularly took part in the stricter, trials. 
Ilis easily intelligible Latin, and his definite and clear mode of putting 
questions, were specially spoken of with praise. 

His aged mother witnessed with just pride his enjoyment of the fruit 
of his exertions ; she did not die till the year 1851, after she had had, 
and had conferred, the pleasure of a visit to him at Hannover. On the 
Christmas eve of 1858 he stood by the bier of a son of much promise, 
who, as a teacher of the deaf and dumb at Hildesheim, was carried off 
by typhus, away from his parental home, in the flower of his age, at 
twenty-three. This blow was no doubt far more severe than that by 
which, in 1847, God took from him a boy of seven years ; but under 
this painful trial the word of the cross approved itself to him a power of 
God. In May 1861 he became Oberconsistorialrath. The constant un- 
certainty of bis health, moreover, and in particular a very annoying 
sleeplessness, made him even at that time entertain the idea of super- 
annuation. In the summer of 1863 he sought and found partial relief 
at the springs of Homburg. In January 1864 the hand of God dis- 
solved the marriage-tie, which he had formed in the year 1823. In the 
preface to the fifth edition of the Commentary on St. Matthew he has 


BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICE OF DR. MEYER. XXX1i1 


penned a well-deserved tribute to the memory of the faithful companion 
of his life, who had shared with him the joys and sorrows of forty 
years, 

From the Midsummer of this year down to his death—exactly, there- 
fore, nine years—he lived under the same roof with me, affectionately 
tended by my wife, the teacher, friend, companion, I might almost say 
playmate, of his two granddaughters. 

On 1st October 1865 he retired from official life, on which occasion, 
in honorable recognition of his lengthened services, he obtained a higher 
decoration of the Guelphic Order which he had already worn since 1847 
—the cross of a Commander of the Second Class. At first he retained 
some share in conducting the examinations ; but this official employ- 
ment, too, he soon gave up. Twice after his superannuation he was 
present by direction of the Government at Halle to take part in the 
Conference, which occupied itself with the settlement of a uniform text 
for Luther’s translation of the Bible, and the fruit of which was the 
edition of 1870, published at the Canstein Bible-Institute. Now that, 
at the age of sixty-five, he was released from professional activity in the 
strict sense of the term, he could devote his life the more tranquilly to 
science and to the pleasure of the society of his friends. His two 
granddaughters accompanied him regularly on his walks in the morning ; 
and I know several houses, the inmates of which looked out every day 
upon the company regularly making its appearance, in which hoary age, 
with blooming youth playing around it, seemed to return to the bright 
days of childhood. And the kindly grandfather in the midst of his 
granddaughters on these morning walks was not monosyllabic or mute. 
On these occasions jest and earnest alternated with instructions and re- 
flections of the most varied character. Punctually every morning at 
the same hour he returned home from these walks, which he continued 
to his last day of health. But he returned not in order to be idle. He 
was wont by way of joke, even after his superannuation, to speak of 
how precisely his time was meted out, and how strictly he had to hus- 
band it. The earlier rapidity of his writing no doubt ceased, and in- 
creasing age imperatively demanded pauses, where his more youthful 
vigor would not have even felt the need of a break. 

To all political party-proceedings he was thoroughly hostile ; but he 
followed the mighty events of the years 1866 and 1870 with the liveliest 
interest. When the German question was being solved by blood and 
iron, when old thrones tottered and fell, he had a cordial sympathy 
with much that was disappearing irretrievably ; but he did not 
obstinately close his eyes to the gratifying fruit which sprang up on the 
bloody soil of 1866. Difficult as it certainly would have been for the 


XXX1V BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICE OF DR. MEYER. 


old man to reconcile himself to altogether new relations of allegiance, he 
sincerely rejoiced over the increasing strength of Germany, and that with 
the greater reason, because he knew from the experiences of his youth 
how sad was the prospect in those days when Germany was simply a 
geographical idea. And if the year 1866 may have kept alive some 
bitter recollections now and then in one who had grown grey in the 
service of the kingdom of Hannover, he well understood the language 
of thunder, in which God spoke to the nations in 1870, and he recog- 
nized the sovereign sway of the Almighty, who with strong arm saved 
us from the house of bondage. ‘To a man, who in the years of his 
boyhood had so often heard the French shout of victory, had seen the 
great Napoleon, had passed through the times of the Rhenish Con- 
federation, and had grown up to manhood in the period when so many 
political hopes were nipped in the bud, the blows of Weissenburg and 
Worth, the united onset of all Germans, appeared almost like a fable. 
How often he changed the direction of his accustomed walks, in order 
to hear at the telegraph-office of new victories and heroic deeds! And 
how grateful was he, who had shared in the times of sore calamity 
and ignominy, for what God permitted the Germans to achieve! He 
was born under the last Emperor of the honse of Hapsburg ; could any- 
thing else be expected of the Protestant exegete, than that he should 
cordially rejoice at the mode in which the German Empire was recon- 
stituted on the 18th January 1871 at Versailles ? 

In the sphere of religion, as in that of politics, all ill-temper and 
irritation were odious and repugnant to him. He had, in the course of 
time, as every reader of his exegetical work well enough knows, become 
more positive in his views ; but he was far removed from any confes- 
sional narrow-mindedness or persecuting spirit. He desired that there 
should be no stunting or spoiling of the homely, simple words of Script- 
ure either from one side or another; and he deeply lamented it, 
wherever it occurred, let the cause of it be what it would. He never 
concealed his conviction ; it has gone abroad everywhere in many thou- 
sand copies of his book ; and he carried with him to the grave the hope 
that it would please God, in His own time, to complete the work of the 
Reformation. 

A mere outward observer of the tranquil and regular course of life of 
my late father might not surmise, but those who were in closer inter- 
course with him for the last two years could not conceal from them- 
selves, that his day was verging to its close. No doubt he still always 
rose, summer and winter, immediately after four o’clock ; he was con- 
stantly to be seen beginning his walks at the same time ; his interest in 
his favorite science was still the same ; but his daily life became more 


BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICE OF DR. MEYER. XXXV 


and more circumscribed in its range, and the pendulum of his day’s 
work vibrated more and more slowly, so that its total cessation could 
not but be apprehended. The journeys to the house of his son-in-law, 
Superintendent Steding at Drausfeld, where he had so often found re- 
freshment and diffused joy by his visits, had long since ceased. After 
a fall, which he met with about a year before his death, his walks were 
curtailed. To this outward occasion he attributed what was probably a 
consequence of gradual decline of strength and advancing age. 

The Lord of life and death, who had so graciously dealt with him 
for seventy-three years, as he himself most gratefully acknowledged, 
spared him also from prolonged suffering at the last. On the 15th 
June he still followed quite his usual mode of life ; he spent the after- 
noon with contentment and cheerfulness in his garden, then took a little 
walk, and went to rest punctually at eight o’clock, as he always did in 
his latter years. The walk on that Sunday afternoon was to be his 
last, and the unfolding glories of the summer were not to be seen by him 
again with the bodily eye. During the night, towards one o’clock, he 
awoke us, as he was suffering from violent iliac pains. With the 
calmest composure he recognized the hand of the Lord, which would 
remove him from the scene of his rich and fruitful Jabors. He declared 
that he was willing and ready to depart, asking only for a speedy and 
not too painful end. The medical aid which at once hastened to his 
side afforded indeed momentary relief by beneficial injections of mor- 
phia ; but the eye of science saw the same danger as those around him 
had immediately felt and foreboded.! It was an incurable visceral affec- 
tion, which was conjectured to be connected with the severe illness that 
he had happily survived twenty-seven years before. On the 19th June 
a transient gleam of hope shone once more for a short time. 
‘“* Willingly,’’ he said on this day, after an uneasy night, ‘* would I still 
remain with you ; but willingly am I also ready to depart, if God calls 
me.”’ It was but a brief gleam of the setting sun before the approach 
of night. This we could not but soon perceive, and this he himself saw 
with the manly Christian self-possession, by means of which he had 
been so often in life a comfort and example to us. Soon after there set 
ina state of half-slumber, during which the most diversified images 
flitted in chequered succession before his mind. Now he saw himself 


‘I may here be allowed, under the natural impulse of melancholy recollec- 
tion conscious of its indebtedness, to mention with the most sincere thanks 
the considerate and devoted care of the physicians in attendance on him—the 
chief-physician Dr, Kéllner and chief-staff-physician Dr. Hiibener. So often 
did they afford to their dying patient the great blessing of mitigating his pain, 
where their tried skill had limits assigned to it by a higher hand. 


KAKA BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICE OF DR. MEYER. 


seated before a large page from the New Testament, on which he was 
employed in commenting, while he fancied that he held the pipe in his 
mouth. In this way had he devoted many a quiet morning hour to his 
favorite study, when his window had been the only one lighted up in 
the street. Then, again, he busied himself with the Fatherland ; 
“Germany, Germany above all,’’ we heard him distinctly say. Was it 
that the recollections of his cheerful student-days, when the Burschen- 
schaft was full of fervor and enthusiasm specially for the Fatherland, 
became interwoven with the mighty events of his latter years? Soon 
afterwards he saw clearly the cross, of which he had so often during his 
long life experienced and diffused the blessing. On the 20th June 
there was given the fatally significant intimation that he might be 
allowed to partake of anything which he wished. He made no further 
use of it than to take some beer, of which he had always been fond. 
But it was only for a passing moment ; and the beer also soon remained 
untouched, just as his pipe and box, formerly his inseparable attendants, 
had since his sickness lost their power of attraction. Violent vomiting 
and the weary singultus, which hardly abated for a moment, announced 
but too plainly that the end of that busy life was closely approaching. 
Shortly before 10 p.m., on the 21st June, he entered without struggle 
upon his rest. His wish, often and urgently expressed during his life- 
time and also on his deathbed, that his body might be opened for medi- 
cal examination, was complied with on the following day, The result 
was to exhibit such visceral adhesion and intussusception,—beyond 
doubt an after-effect of his earlier illness,—that even the daring venture 
of a surgical operation could not have been attended with success. On 
Midsummer-day he was buried in the Neustidter churchyard, where he 
had so often, during the exercise of his pastoral functions, stood by the 
open grave of members of his flock. On the cross at his tomb are 
placed the words from Rom. xiv. 8: ‘‘ Whether we live, we live unto 
the Lord; whether we die, we die unto the Lord. Whether we live 
therefore or die, we are the Lord’s.’’ 


Hannover, December 1873. 


PREFACE TO THE PRESENT (SIXTH) EDITION. 


Tue venerable author of the Critical and Exegetical Handbook to the 
Gospel of Matthew, who was called away from this life this day just two 
years ago, left behind him a complete revision of the book with a view 
to a sixth edition of it. He was most conscientiously careful in keeping 
the successive editions, that were ever being called for, of the several 
portions of his Commentary on the New Testament thoroughly on a 
level with the competing critical and exegetical labors of his contem- 
poraries. Accordingly he had prepared in good time the matter to be 
substituted for the fifth edition of the present part, which appeared in 
1864. The few material changes and the supplementary additions, by 
which this edition is distinguished from its predecessor, are thus wholly 
the work of Meyer. The undersigned, out of friendship for the pub- 
lisher, and out of dutiful affection towards the author, with whom he 

was closely connected in his latter years, undertook to look over the 
manuscript, and has accordingly deemed himself entitled merely to make 
alterations of minor compass in form and style. This Preface, there- 
fore, has no other object than simply to introduce the book afresh to 
the theological public, to whom there is no need that [ should descant 
on the merits of the deceased author in order to keep alive his memory 
and the enduring intellectual influence of his work. 


Proressor Dr. A. RITSCHL. 


GOTTINGEN, 21st June, 1875. 


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EXEGETICAL LITERATURE. 





[Tur following list—which is not meant to be exhaustive, but is intended to 
embrace the more important works in the several departments to which it 
applies—contains commentaries, or collections of notes, which relate to the 
New Testament as a whole, to the four Gospels as such, to the three Synoptic 
Gospels (including the chief Harmonies), or to the Gospel of Matthew in partic- 
ular, along with the principal editions of the Greek New Testament that are 
referred to in the critical remarks prefixed to each chapter, and the more note- 
worthy Grammars and Lexicons of New Testament Greek. It does not include 
(with the exception of some half-dozen works that contain considerable exegeti- 
cal matter) the large number of treatises dealing with questions of Introduction 
or of historical criticism in relation to the Gospels, because these are generally 
specified by Meyer when he refers to them ; nor does it contain monographs 
on chapters or sections, which are generally noticed by Meyer in loc, Works 
mainly of a popular or practical character have, with a few exceptions, been 
excluded, since, however valuable they may be on their own account, they 
have but little affinity with the strictly exegetical character of the present work. 
The editions quoted are usually the earliest ; al. appended denotes that the 
book has been more or less frequently reissued; | marks the date of the 
author’s death ; c, = circa, an approximation to it.—W. P. D.] 


Aubert (Johannes), + 1762, Prof. Theol. at Leyden : Observationes philologicae 

in sacros N, F. libros. 8°, Lugd. Bat. 1725. 

ALEXANDER (Joseph Addison), D.D., + 1860, Prof. Bibl. and Eccl. History at 
Princeton : The Gospel according to Matthew explained. 

12°, New York [and Lond.] 1861. 

Atrorp (Henry), D.D., + 1871, Dean of Canterbury: The Greek Testament, 

with a critically revised text . . . and a critical and exegetical com- 


mentary. 4 vols. 8°, Lond. 1849-61, al. 
ANGER (Rudolph), + 1866, Prof. Theol. at Leipzig : Synopsis Evangeliorum 
Matthaei, Marci, Lucae. .. . 8°, Lips. 1852. 
ANNOTATIONS upon all the books of the O. and N. Testament ... . by the 
joint Jabour of certain learned divines thereunto appointed . . . [by 
the Westminster Assembly of Divines]. 2 vols. 2°, Lond. 1645, ai. 
AnseLM, of Laon, +1117, Teacher of Schol. Theol. at Paris: Glossa interli- 
nearis. 2°, Basil. 1502, al. 
Aquinas (Thomas), + 1274, Scholastic philosopher ; Catena vere aurea in qua- 
tuor Evangelia. 29, s. U. 1474, al. 


[Translated by Dr. Pusey and others. 4 vols. in 8. 
8°, Oxf. 1841-45.] 
Aretius (Benedict), | 1574, Prof. Theol. at Berne: Commentarii in quatuor 


Evangelia. 8°, Lausannae, 1577, al. 
Commentarii in N, T. 2°, Paris. 1607, al. 


Arias Montano (Benito), + 1598, Spanish monk, Editor of the Antwerp Poly- 
glott : Elucidationes in quatuor Evangelia, 49, Antverp. 1573. 


xl EXEGETICAL LITERATURE. 


ARNAULD (Antoine), + 1694, Port Royalist : Historia et concordia evangelica. 
12°, Paris. 1643, al. 
Arwnoupi (Matthias) : Commentar zum Evangelium des h. Matthaus. 
8°, Trier, 1856. 
Aveustinus (Aurelius), + 430, Bishop of Hippo: Exegetica commentaria in 
N. T., viz. De consensu Evangelistarum libri iv.; De Bermone Domini 
in Monte hbri ii.; Quaestionum Evangeliorum libri i ii. ; Quaestionum 
septendecim in Evang. secundum Matthaeum liber i; In Joannis 
Evangelium tractatus cxxiv.; in Epistolam Joannis ad Parthos tractatus 
x.; Expositio quarundam propositionum ex Epistola ad Romanos, 
liber i.; Epistolae ad Romanos inchoata expositio, liber i.; Expositio 
Epistolae ad Galatas, liber i. [Opera, tom. iii. ed. Benedict. 
2°, Paris. 1680, al.] 
[Partly translated in ‘“‘ Library of the Fathers’’ and in ‘‘ Works of St. 
Augustine.’’] 


BauMGARTEN-Crusius (Ludwig Friedrich Otto), + 1843, Prof. Theol. at Jena: 
Commentar tber das Evang. das Matthaus [und itber die Evang. 


des Markus und Lukas... .]. 8°, Jena, 184445. 
Baxter (Richard), + 1691, Nonconformist divine : A paraphrase on the N. T., 
with notes. .. 4°, Lond. 1685, al. 


BEAvusosre (Isaac de), 4 1738, French pastor at Berlin: Remarques histo- 
riques, critiques et philologiques sur le N. T. 2 tomes. 
40, La pte 1742. 
And Lrenrant (Jacques), ¢ 1728, French pastor at Berlin : Le N. T 
traduit en frangois .. . avec des notes litérales, pour éclairir le 


texte. 2 tomes. 40, Amst. 1718, al. 

Brpa (Venerabilis), + 735, monk at Jarrow : Commentarii in quatuor Evangelia. 
Opera. | 

BEELEN (Jean-Théodore), R. C. Prof. Or. Lang. at Louvain : Grammatica 

Graecitatis N. T. 89, Lovanii, 1857. 


Brneet (Johann Albrecht), “+1751, Prelate in Witirtemberg: N. 'T. Graecum ita 
adornatum, ut textus probatarum editionum medullam, margo vavri- 
antium lectionum . . . delectum, apparatus subjunctus criseos sacrae, 
Millianae praesertim, compendium, limam, supplementum ac fructum 
exhibeat, 4", Tubing. 1734, al. 
Gnomon N. T., in quo ex nativa verborum vi simplicitas, profunditas, 

concinnitas, salubritas sensuum coelestium indicatur. 4°, Tubing. 
1742, al. [Translated by Rev. A..R. Faussett. 5 vols. 
Edin. 1857-58, al.] 


Richtige Harmonie der vier Evangelisten. 8°, Tubing. 1736, al. 
BERLEPSCH (August, Freiherr von): Quatuor N. T. Evangelia . . . orthodoxe 
explanata. . . Ratisb. 1849. 


BEzE [Buz] (Theodore de), + 1605, Pastor at Geneva: N. T. sive N. Foedus, 
cujus Graeco textui respondent interpretationes duae, una vetus, altera 
nova Theodori Bezae ... Ejusdem Th. Bezae annotationes... 

2°, Genev. 1565, al. 

Bisprne (August), R. C. Prof. Theol. at Minster: Exegetisches Handbuch zum 


N.T. 9 Bande. 8°, Minster, 1867-76. 
Burex (Friedrich), ¢ 1859, Prof. Theol. at Bonn: Synoptische Erklirung der 
drei ersten Evangelien. 2 Bande. 8°, Leip. 1862. 


BLooMFIELD (Samuel Thomas), D.D., + Vicar of Bisbrooke : The Greek Testa- 
ment, accompanied with English notes, critical, philological, and ex- 
egetical. 2 vols. 8°, Lond. 1829, al. 
Recensio synoptica annotationis sacrae . . . 8 voll. 80, Lond, 1826-28. 

Bos (Lambert), + 1717, Prof. of Greek at Franeker : Observationes miscellaneae 


ad loca quaedam .. . N. F. 8°, Franek. 1707. 
Exercitationes philologicae in quibus N. F. loca nonnulla ex auctoribus 
Graecis illustrantur. 8°, Franek. 1700, al. 


Brent (Johann), + 1570, Provost at Stuttgart : Commentarii in Matthaeum, 
Mareum et Lucam, [Opera. Tom. v.] 2°, Tubing. 1590. 


EXEGETICAL LITERATURE. xli 


BRETSscHNEIDER (Karl Gottlieb), +1848, General Superintendent at Gotha: 
Lexicon manuale Graeco-Latinum in libros N. T. 2 voll. 

8°, Lips. 1824, al. 

Brown (John), D.D., + 1858, Prof. Exeg. Theol. to United Presbyterian Church, 

Edinburgh : Discourses and sayings of our Lord illustrated in a series 

of expositions. 3 vols. 8°, Edin. 1850. 

Brown (David), D.D., Principal of Free Church College at Aberdeen : A com- 

mentary, critical, experimental, and practical, on the New Testament. 

[Vols. V. VI. of Commentary... by Dr. Jamieson, Rev. A. R. 


Fausset, and Dr. Brown. 8°, Glasg. 1864-74. | 
Bucer (Martin), + 1551, Prof. Theol. at Cambridge : In sacra quatuor Evangelia 
enarrationes perpetuae. ... 8°, Argent. 1527, al. 


BunLuincER (Heinrich), 1575, + Pastor at Ziirich. N.T. historia evangelica sigilla- 
tim per quatuor Evangelistas descripta, una cum Act. Apost. omni- 
busque Epistolis Apostolorum explicata commentariis. 2°, Turici, 


1554, al. 
Bunsen (Christian Carl Josias von), + 1860, German statesman : Vollstiindiges 
Bibelwerk fiir die Gemeinde. . . . 10 Bande. 8°, Leip. 1858-70. 


[Band IV. Die Biicher des N. B. Herausgegeben von Heinrich Julius 
Holtzmann. } 
Burman (Franciscus), + 1719, Prof. Theol. at Utrecht : Harmonie ofte overeen- 


stemminge der vier h. Evangelisten. 49, Amst. 1713, al. 
Burton (Edward), D.D., + 1836, Prof. Theol. at Oxford : The Greek Testament 
with English notes. 2 vols. 8°, Oxf. 1831, al. 


Burrmann (Alexander), retired Professor at Berlin: Grammatik des neutest. 
Sprachgebrauchs, im Anschlusse an Ph. Buttmann’s Griechische 


Grammatik bearbeitet. 8°, Berlin, 1859. 
[Authorized translation (by J. H. Thayer), with numerous additions 
and corrections by the author. 8°, Andover, 1873. ] 


Casetanus [Tommaso pa Vio], + 1534, Cardinal: In quatuor Evangelia et Acta 
Apostolorum . . . ad sensum quem vocant literalem commentarii. 
ses 2° Vienet. 1530) al: 

Carrxtus (Georg), + 1656, Prof. Theol. at Helmstadt: Quatuor Evangelicorum 
seriptorum concordia, et locorum . . . difficiliorum explicatio. 

4°, Halberstadii, 1624, al. 

Catmetr (Augustin), | 1757, Abbot of Senones: Commentaire litteral sur tous 
les livres de 1A. et du N. Testament. 23 tomes. 

49, Paris, 1707-16, al. 

Catovius (Abraham), + 1676, General Superintendent at Wittenberg : Biblia 
Testamenti Veteris [et Novi] illustrata. ... 

2°, Francof. ad M. 1672-76, al. 
[Tom. IV. Cum Harmonia evangelica noviter concinnata. } 

Catyin [CHauvin] (Jean), + 1564, Reformer : Commentarii in Harmoniam ex 
Eyangelistis tribus . . . compositam. .. . 29, Genev. 1553, al. 
[Translated by Rev. W. Pringle. 8°, Edin. 1844-45. ] 

CaMERARIUS (Joachim), + 1574, Prof. of Greek at Leipzig : Notatio figurarum 
sermonis in quatuor libris Evangeliorum, indicata verborum significa- 
tione et orationis sententia ... tin scriptis apostolicis. 

4°, Lips. 1572. 
Subsequently issued under the title, ‘‘Commentarius in N. F... .” 
along with Beza’s N. T. and Annotations. 2° Cantab. 1642. 

CAMERON (John), ¢ 1625, Prof. Theol. at Montauban: Praelectiones in selec- 
tiora quaedam loca N. T. 3 voll. 4°, Salmur. 1626-28, al. Myrotheci- 
um evangelicum, hoe est, N. T., loca quamplurima vel illustrata, vel 
explicata vel vindicata. .. . 49, Genev. 1682. 

CaMPBELL (George), D.D., + 1796, Principal of Marischal College, Aberdeen : 
The four Gospels translated from the Greek, with preliminary disser- 
tations and notes critical and explanatory. 2 vols. 4°, Lond. 1789, al. 

CappeL (Jacques) [Capretius], + 1624, Prof. Theol. at Sedan : Observationes 
in N. T.... nune demum ... in lucem editae, procurante Ludo- 


2 


xh EXEGETICAL LITERATURE, 


vico Cappello [+ 1658, Prof. Theol. at Saumur]. . . una cum ejusdem 

Lud. Cappelli Spicilegio. .. . 4°, Amstel. 1657. 
CarPENTER (Lant), LL.D., + 1840, Unitarian Minister at Bristol: A harmony 

or synoptical arrangement of the Gospels. 2d ed. 8°, Lond. 1838. 
CartwricHt (Thomas), + 1603, Puritan divine: Harmonia evangelica, com- 

mentario analytico, metaphrastico et practico illustrata. 

49, Amstel. 1627, al. 

CasTario [CHATEILLON] (Sebastian), + 1563, Prof. of Greek at Basel: Biblia V. 

et N. T. ex versione Sebast. Castalionis cum ejusdem annotationibus. 

2°, Basil. 1551, al. 
CaTENAE Patrum. See Cramer, CorpERIUS, Possinus. 
CuapmMan (Richard), B.A. A Greek harmony of the Gospels . . . with notes. 
49 Lond. 1836. ! 

Curemnitz (Martin), + 1586, Teacher of Theol. at Brunswick: Harmonia qua- 


tuor Evangelistarum, a . . . D. Martino Chemnitio primum inchoata : 
D. Polycarpo Lysero post continuata, atque D. Johanne Gerhardo tan- 
dem felicissime absoluta. 3 voll. 2°, Francof. 1652, al. 


[First issued separately, 1593-1627. ] 

Crrysostomus (Joannes), + 407, Archbishop of Constantinople: Homiliae in 
Matthaeum [Opera, ed. Bened. VIL., al.].—Homiliae in Matth. Graece, 
textum .. . emendavit, praecipuam lectionis varietatem adscripsit, 
annotationibus . . . instruxit Fredericus Field. 3 voll. 

8°, Cantab. 1839. 


{Translated in ‘‘ Library of the Fathers.” 8°, Oxf. 1843-51. ] 
CrytTrarus [KocuHarr] (David), + 1600, Prof. Theol. at Rostock : Commenta- 
rius in Evangelium Matthaei. 8°, Vitemb. 1555, al. 


Cuario [Cuartus] (Isidoro), + 1555, Bishop of Foligno: Vulgata editio V. et 
N. T., quorum alterum ad Graecam veritatem emendatum est. . 


adjectis . . . scholiis . . . locupletibus. ... 2°, Venet. 1542, al. 
CLARKE (Adam), + 1832, Wesleyan minister: The Bible . . . with a commen- 
tary and critical notes. 8 vols. 4°, Lond. 1810-26. 
CuarkE (Samuel), D.D., + 1729, Rector of St. James’, Westminster: A para- 
phrase of the four Evangelists , . . with critical notes on the more 
difficult passages. 4°, Lond, 1701-02, al. 


CiausEN (Henrik Nicolai), Prof. Theol. at Copenhagen : Quatuor Evangeliorum 
tabulae synopticae. Juxta rationes temporum ... composuit, an- 
notationibusque . . . instruxit H. N. Clausen, 8°, Kopenh, 1829. 
Fortolking af de synoptiske Evangelier. 2 parts. 8°, Copenh. 1850. 

Cuericus [LE Cirerc] (Jean), + 1736, Prof. Eccles. Hist. at Amsterdam : Har- 
monia evangelica Graece et Latine. .. . 2°, Amstel, 1699, al. 
[ Translated. 49, Lond. 1701. See also Hammonp. ] 

Conant (Thomas J.), D.D., Prof. Heb. at New York : The Gospel of Matthew 
. . . With a revised version, and critical and philological notes, 
[American Bible Union. ] New York, 1860. 

CorpErius [Corprer] (Balthasar), + 1650, Jesuit: Catena Graecorum patrum 
triginta in Matthaeum, collectore Niceta episcopo Serrarum, Cum 
versione Latina ed. B. Corderius. 2°, Tolosae, 1647. 

CraMER (John Anthony), D.D., + 1848, Principal of New Inn Hall, Oxford : 
Catenae Graecorum Patrum in Novum Testamentum. 8 voll. 

8°, Oxon. 1838-44. 

Creu (Johann), + 1633, Socinian teacher at Racow : Opera omnia exegetica 
sive in plerosque libros N, T. commentarii. . . 

[Opera. I.—IIT. ] 2°, Eleutheropoli [Amstel.], 1656. 

CreMER (Hermann), Prof. Theol. at Greifswald : Biblisch-theologisches Wérter- 
buch der neutestamentlichen Graecitiit, 8°, Gotha, 1866, al. 
[Translated by D. W. Simon, Ph.D., and William Urwick, M.A. 

8°, Edin. 1872.] 

CRITICI SACRI sive doctissimorum virorum in sacra Biblia annotationes et trac- 
tatus [In N. T.: Vallae, Revii, Erasmi, Vatabli, Castalionis, Munsteri, 
Clarii, Drusii, Zegeri, Grotii, Scaligeri, Cameronis, Pricaei et aliorum]. 
9 tomi. 2°, Lond. 1660, al. 


’ 


EXEGETICAL LITERATURE. xhil 


Deyiine (Salomon), + 1755, Prof. Theol. at Leipzig : Observationes sacrae, in 
quibus multae Seripturae V. ac N. T. dubia vexata solvuntur, loca dif- 


ficiliora. .. illustrantur.... 5 partes. 4°, Lips. 1708-48, al. 
Dicrson (David), + 1662, Prof. Theol. at Edinburgh: A brief exposition of the 
Gospel according to Matthew. 12°, Lond. 1651., 


Drev (Louis de), + 1642, Prof. at Walloon College, Leyden : Animadversiones 
sive commentarius in quatuor Evangelia... . 

49, Lugd. Bat. 1631, al. 

Critica sacra, seu animadversiones in loca quaedam difficiliora V. et 

N. T. variis in locis ex auctoris manuscriptis aucta. 2°, Amstel. 1693. 

DizHeRR (Johann Michael), + 1669, Prof. Theol. at Niirnberg : Eclogae sacrae 

N. T. Syriacae, Graecae et Latinae, cum observationibus philologicis. 

12°, Jenae, 1638, al. 

Dionysius Cartuustanus [Denys DE RycKet], + 1471, Carthusian monk : Com- 

mentarii in universos S. 8. libros. 2°, Colon. 1530-36. 

DopprincsE (Philip), D.D., + 1751, Nonconformist minister at Northampton : 

The family expositor ; or, a paraphrase and version of the N. T., with 

critical notes.... 3 vols. 49, Lond. 1738-47, al. 

Doveury [Doverarus] (John), + 1672, Rector of Cheam, Surrey: Analecta ' 

sacra, sive excursus philologici breves super diversis 8. S. locis. 2 

voll. 8°, Lond. 1658-60, al. 

Drustus (Joannes) [VAN DEN DriescHeE], + 1616, Prof. Or. Lang. at Franeker : 

Anuotationum in totum Jesu Christi Testamentum ; sive praeterito- 

rum libri decem. Ht pars altera.... 4°, Franek, 1612-16. 

Ad voces Ebraeas N. T, Commentarius duplex. 4°, Franek. 1606, al. 


Esrarp (Johann Heinrich August), Consistorialrath at Erlangen: Wissen- 
schaftliche Kritik der evangelischen Geschichte... . 
8°, Erlangen, 1841, al. 3 Auflage. 8°, Frankf. 1866. 
[Translated in ‘‘ Foreign Theological Library.”] 

EcrrerMann (Jakob Christian Rudolph), + 1836, Prof. Theol. at Kiel : Erklirung 


aller dunklen Stellen des N. T. 38 Bande. 8°, Kiel, 1806-08. 
EicutHat (Gustave de), Les Evangiles. 1* partie: examen critique et compar- 
atif des trois premiers Evangiles. 8°, Paris, 1863. 
Estey (J.), M.A., Vicar of Burneston: Annotations on the Four Gospels ; 
compiled and abridged. ... 2 vols. 8°, Lond. 1799, al. 
Exsner (Jakob), + 1750, Consistorialrath at Berlin : Observationes sacrae in N. 
IMS MOOSE Aig o PATO: 8°, Traject. 1720-28. 


Commentarius critico-philologicus in Evangelium Matthaei, edidit et 
notulas quasdam adjecit Ferdinandus Stosch. 2 voll. 
4°, Zwollae, 1767-69, 

Exzrvir, or Exzrevier, name of the celebrated family of printers at Leyden. 

The abbreviation Elz. denotes the edition of the N. T. issued in 1633 

N. T. Ex regiis aliisque optimis editionibus cum cura impressum, 
12°, Lugd. 1633], and frequently reprinted, which presents what is 
called the Teatus Receptus. 

Episcopius (Simon), + 1643, Prof. Theol. at Amsterdam : Notae breves in xxiv. 
priora capita Matthaei. [Opera theol. 2°, Amstel. 1650.] 

Erasmus (Desiderius), + 1536: Novum Testamentum omne, diligenter recogni- 
tum et emendatum... 2°, Basil. 1516. ditio princeps followed by 
others edited by Erasmus in 1519, 1522, 1527, and 1535.—Adnotationes 
in Novum Testamentum, 2°, Basil. 1516, et al.—Paraphrases in Novum 
Testamentum, 2°, Basil, 1522, etal. [Translated, 2 vols. 

2°, Lond. 1548, al.] 

EvtnuyMivus ZicaBenvs, | ¢. 1118, Greek monk : Commentarius in quatuor Evan- 

gelia Graece et Latine. Textum Graecum... suis animadversionibus 


edidit C. F. Matthaei. 3 tomi in 4. 8°, Lips. 1792. 
Ewap (Georg Heinrich August), + 1876, Prof. Or. Lang. at Géttingen : Die drei 
ersten Evangelien tibersetzt und erklirt. 8°, Gotting. 1850, al. 


Fapricius (Johann Albrecht), + 1736, Prof. Eloq. at Hamburg : Observationes 
selectae in varia loca N. T. 8°, Hamb. 1712. 


xliv EXEGETICAL LITERATURE. 


Fervs [Wip] (Johannes), + 1554, Cathedral Preacher at Mentz: Enarrationes 
in Matthaeum. 2°, Mogunt. 1559, al. 
Fiscuer (Johann Friedrich), + 1799, Principal of the Fiirsten Collegium at Leip- 
zig: Prolusiones in quibus varii loci librorum divinorum utriusque 
Testamenti... explicantur atque illustrantur.... 8°, Lips. 1779. 
Fuacius Illyricus (Matthias) [Fuacu], + 1575, Prof. Theol. at Jena: Clavis 
scripturae sacrae, seu de sermone sacr. litterarum. 2°, Basil. 1567, al. 


Glossa compendiaria in Novum Testamentum. 2°, Basil. 1570, al. 
FRIEDLIEB (Joseph Heinrich), R. C. Prof. Theol. at Breslau : Quatuor Evan- 
gelia sacra in harmoniam redacta. . . 8°, Vratisl. 1847. 


FrirzscHe (Karl Friedrich August), +1846, Prof. Theol. at Rostock : Evangelium 
Matthaei recensuit et cum commentariis perpetuis edidit D. C.F. A. 
Fritzsche. 8°, Lips. 1826. 


GaGNnaEvs (Johannes) [Jean de GacnEE], + 1549, Rector of Univ. of Paris: In 
quatuor . . . Evangelia necnon Actus Apostolorum scholia ex praeci- 
puis Graecorum et Latinorum scriptis selecta. 2° Paris. 1552; al. 

GEHRINGER (Joseph), R. C.: Synoptische Zusammenstellung des griechischen 
Textes der vier Evangelien. 8°, Tubing. 1842. 

GERHARD (Johann), + 1637, Prof. Theol. at Jena: Adnotationes posthumae in 
Evangelium Matthaei. 2°, Jenae, 1663. 
Harmonia quatuor Evangelistarum. See Curmmnitrz (Martin). 

Gitt (John), + 1771, Baptist pastor in Southwark: An exposition of the New 
Testament. 3 vols. 2°, Lond. 1743-48, al. 

Gu6ceLtER (Conrad): Die Evangelien des Matthaus, Markus, und Lukas in 
Uebereinstimmung gebracht und erklirt. 2 Abtheilungen. 

8°, Frankf. 1834. 

Gratz (Aloys): Kritisch-historischer Commentar tiber das Hvangelium Mat- 
thaei. 2 Theile. 8°, Tubing. 1821-23, 

Green (Thomas Sheldon), M.,A., Headmaster of Grammar School at Ashby de 
la Zouch : Treatise on the grammar of the N. T. dialect. . . 

8°, Lond. 1842, al. 

GRESWELL (Edward), B. D., Vice-Pres. of Corpus Christi Coll., Oxford : Har- 
monia evangelica, sive quatuor Evangelia Graece, pro temporis et 
rerum serie in partes quinque distributa. 8°, Oxon. 1830, al. 
Dissertations upon the principles and arrangement of a Harmony of 

the Gospels. 3 vols. 8°, Oxf. 1830. 
An exposition of the parables and of other parts of the Gospels. 5 vols. 
in 6. Oxf, 1834-35. 

Griespach (Johann Jakob), + 1812, Prof. Theol. at Jena: Boe. Testa- 
mentum Graece, Textum ad fidem codicum, versionum et Patrum 
recensuit et lectionis varietatem adjecit D. Jo. Ja. Griesbach, Editio 


secunda. 8°, Halis, 1796-1809, ai. 
Synopsis Evangeliorum. . . 8°, Halae, 1776, al. 
Grom (Karl Ludwig Willibald), Prof, Theol. at Jena: Lexicon Graeco-Latinum 
in libros Novi Testamenti. 8°, Lips. 1868. 
GRINFIELD (Edward William), M. A.: N. T. Graecum. mae Hellenistica. 
2voll. Scholia Hellenistica in N. T. 4 Pyle , Lond. 1843-48. 


Grotius (Hugo), + 1645, Dutch Statesman : Annotationes in aN 7. 12°) Paris: 
1644, al.—Annotationes in N. T. Denuo emendatius editae. 9 voll. 
8°, Groning. 1826-34. 


Haun eueusl) +1863, General Superintendent in Breslau : N. T. Graece, post 
A. H. Tittmannum ad fidem optimorum librorum secundis curis 
Hea a, lectionumque varietatem subjecit Augustus Hahn. 
8°, Lips. 1840. 
Hammonp (Henry), D. D., + 1660, Sub-dean of Christ Church, Oxford : Para- 
phrase and annotations upon all the hooks of the N. a 


Lond, 1653, al. 
[Ex Anglica lingua in Latinum transtulit suisque pele a ees 
auxit J. Clericus. 2°, Amstel. 1698, al.] 


Harpovurn (Jean), + 1729, Jesuit : Commentarius inN.T. 2°, Hagae-Com. 1741. 


EXEGETICAL LITERATURE. xly 


Herystvs (Daniel), + 1665, Prof. Hist. at Leyden : Sacrarum exercitationum ad 


IN[ SITES Min grerbpo:<5) spoliya 2°, Lugd. Bat. 1639, al. 
Hence (Wessel Albert van), Prof. Theol. at Leyden : Annotatio ad loca non- 
nulla N. T. _ 8°, Amstel. 1824. 
Hevumann (Christoph August), +1764, Prof. Theol. at Goéttingen ; Erklarung 
des N. T. 12 Bande. 8°, Hannov. 1750-63. 


Hieronymus (Eusebius Sophronius), + 420, monk at Bethlehem : Commentarius 
in Matthaeum. [Opera. | 

Himantvs Pictaviensis, +368, Bishop of Poitiers: In Evangelium Matthaei com- 

mentarius. [Opera. I. ed. Bened.] 2°, Paris. 1693. 

Horrzmann (Heinrich Johann), Prof. Theol. in Heidelberg: Die Synoptische 

- Evangelien, ihr Ursprung und geschichtlicher Charakter. [See also 

BunsEN. ] 8°, Leip. 1863. 

Homserrcu zu Vach (Johann Friedrich), + 1748, Prof. of Laws at Marburg: 
Parerga sacra, seu observationes quaedam ad N. T. 

49, Traj. ad Rhen. 1712, al. 

Hounntus (Aegidius), + 1603, General Superintendent at Wittenberg : Thesaurus 

evangelicus complectens commentarios in quatuor Evangelistas et 

Actus Apost. nune primum hac forma editus. 2°, Vitemb. 1706. 

Thesaurus apostolicus, complectens commentarios in omnes N. T. 

Epistolas et Apocalypsin Joannis. . . novis, quae antea deficiebant, 

commentationibus auctus . . . 2°, Vitemb. 1707. [Also, Opera 

Latina, III., IV. 2°, Vitemb. 1607. ] 


Jacospus (Melanchthon W.), Notes on the Gospels, 2 vols. 12°, New York, 1871. 
JANSENIuS (Cornelius), + 1638, R. C. Bishop of Ypres: Tetrateuchus ; seu com- 
mentarius in quatuor Evangelia. 49, Lovanii, 1639, al. 
JansENIuS (Cornelius), + 1576, R. C. Bishop of Ghent : Concordia evangelica. 
49 Lovanii, 1549, al. 

Commentariorum in suam Concordiam ac totam historiam evangelicam 

partes IV. 2°, Lovanii, 1571, al. 

Junius (Franciscus) [Francois pu Jon], + 1602, Prof. Theol. at Leyden : Sacra 
parallela, id est, comparatio locorum 8. 8., qui ex Testamento Vetere 


in Novo adducuntur. 8°, Lond. 1588, al. 
KAvurrer (Johann Ernst Rudolph), Court chaplain in Dresden : N. T. Graece 
. edidit et . . . brevibus notis instruxit J. E.R. Kauffer. Fasc. I. 

_ Evangelium Matthaei. 12°, Lips. 1827. 
KeucHen (Peter), + 1689, Pastor at Arnheim: Adnotata in quatuor Kvangelis- 
tas et Acta apostolorum. 4°, Amstel. 1689, al. 
Annotata in omnes.N. T, libros. 49, Amstel. 1709. 


Kistemaxker (Johann Hyazinth), + 1834, R. C. Prof. Theol. at Minster: Die 
Evangelien uebersetzt und erklirt. 4 Bande. 8°, Minster, 1818-20. 
Knapp (Georg Christian), + 1825, Prof. Theol. at Halle.: N. T. Graece Recogno- 
vit atque insignioris lectionum varietatis et argumentorum notationes 
subjunxit G. Ch. Knapp. 40 Hal. 1797, al. 

Scripta varii argumenti maximam partem exegetica atque historica, 
8°, Hal. 1805, al. 

KnatcHBut (Sir Norton), Bart., + 1684 : Animadversiones in libros N. T. 

8°, Lond, 1659, al. 
K6écuer (Johann Christoph), + 1772, Prof. Theol. at Jena: Analecta philologica 
et exegetica in quatuor S. S. Evangelia, quibus J. C. Wolfii Curae 


: philol. et crit. supplentur atque augentur. 4°, Altenb. 1766. 
Késtrix (Karl Reinhold), Prof. Theol. at Tiibingen : Der Ursprung und die 
Komposition der synoptischen Evangelien. 8°, Stuttg. 1853. 


Krarrr (Johann Christian Gottlob Ludwig), + 1845, Prof. Theol. at Erlangen : 
Chronologie und Harmonie der vier Evangelien. Herausgegeben von 


Dr. Burger. 8°, Erlang. 1848. 
Krezs (Johann Tobias), + 1782, Rector at Grimma : Observationes in N. T. e 
Flavio Josepho. 8°, Lips. 1755. 


Kurxoen [Ktunox] (Christian Gottlieb), + 1841, Prof. Theol. at Giessen : Com- 
mentarius in libros N. T. historicos. 4 voll. 8°, Lips. 1807-18, al. 
Observationes ad N. T. ex libris Apocryphis V. T. 8°, Lips. 1794. 


a) 


xlyi EXEGETICAL LITERATURE. 


Kourtner (Christian Gottfried), + 1789 : Hypomnemata in N. T., quibus Grae- 
citas ejus explicatur et scholiis . . . illustratur. 8°, Lips. 1780. 
Kypxe (Georg David), + 1779, Prof. Or. Lang. at Kénigsberg : Observationes 
sacrae in N. F. libros ex auctoribus potissimum Graecis et antiquita- 
tibus. 2 partes. 8°, Vratislav. 1755. 


LacHMann (Karl), + 1851, Prof. Philos, at Berlin : Novum Testamentum Graece 
et Latine, Carolus Lachmannus recensuit, Philippus Buttmannus lecti- 


onis auctoritates apposuit. 2 voll. 8°, Berol. 1842-50. 
‘Lamy (Bernard), + 1715, R. C. Teacher of Theol. at Grenoble : Historia, sive 
concordia quatuor Evangelistarum, 12° Paris. 1689. 
Commentarius in Harmoniam. .. . 2 voll. 4°, Paris. 1699. 


Lance (Joachim), + 1744, Prof. Theol. at Halle: Evangelisches Licht und 
Recht ; oder richtige und erbauliche Erklarung der heiligen vier Evan- 


gelisten und der Apostelgeschichte. 2°, Halae, 1735. 
Apostolisches Licht und Recht... . 2°, Halae, 1729. 
Apocalyptisches Licht und Recht, .. . 2°, Halae, 1730. 
Biblia parenthetica . . . darinnen der biblische Text durch gewisse 
mit andern Littern darzwischen gesezte Worte nach dem Grundtext 
erlautert wird. 2 Bande. 2°, Leip. 1743. 


Lance (Johann Peter), Prof. Theol. at Bonn: Das Evangelium des Matthaeus 
theologisch-homiletisch bearbeitet. [Theol.-hom. Bibelwerk.] 
8°, Bielefeld, 1857, al. 
[Translated from the 3d German ed., with additions . . . by Philip 
Schaff, D.D. New York and Edin. 1865, al.] 
LaprpE (Cornelius 4) [VAN DEN SreEn], + 1637, 8. J., Prof. Sac. Scrip. at 
Louvain :Commentaria in V. ac N. Testamentum. 10 voll. 
3 2°, Antverp. 1664, al. 
Leicu (Edward), M.P., + 1671 : Annotations upon the N. T. 
2°, Lond. 1650, al. 
Critica sacra .. . 49, Lond. 1650, al. 
Licutroor (John), D.D., + 1675, Master of Catherine Hall, Cambridge: The 
harmony of the four Evangelists among themselves and with the O. T., 
with an explanation of the chief difficulties. ... 
49, Lond. 1644-50, al. 
Horae Hebraicae et Talmudicae . . . issued separately first in Eng- 
lish and subsequently in Latin. 4°, 1644-64, al. 
Edited by H. Gandell. 4 vols. 8°, Oxf. 1859. [On the four Gospels, 
Acts, part of Romans, and 1 Corinthians. | 
Livermore (Abiel Abbot), Minister at Cincinnati: The four Gospels, with a 


commentary. 12°, Boston, U. S., 1850. 
Logsner (Christoph Friedrich), + 1803, Prof. Sac. Philol. at Leipzig : Observa- 
tiones ad N. T. e Philone Alexandrino. 8°, Lips. 1777.. 
Lucas (Francois), + 1619, R. C. Dean at St. Omer : Commentarius in quatuor 
Evangelia. 2 voll. 2°, Antv. 1606. 


Supplementum commentarii in Lucam et in Joannem. 2 voll. 
2°, Antverp. 1612, al. 
Lurucr (Martin), + 1546, Reformer: Annotationes in aliquot capita [1-18] 
Matthaei. . . . [Opera.] 
Lyra (Nicolas de), + 1340, Franciscan monk : Postillae perpetuae ; sive bre- 
via commentaria in universa Biblia. 2°, Romae, 1471, al. 


Macrnicut (James), D.D., + 1800, Minister at Edinburgh : A harmony of the 
Gospels, in which the natural order of each is preserved. With a par- 
aphrase and notes. 2 vols. 4°, Lond. 1756, al. 

Marponavo (Juan), + 1583, Jesuit : Commentarii in quatuor Evangelistas. 2 voll. 

2°, Mussiponti, 1596, al. 

Marrana (Juan), + 1624, Jesuit : Scholia brevia in V. et N, Testamentum. 

2°, Matriti, 1619, al. 

Martorat (Augustin), + 1563, Pastor at Rouen : Novi Testamenti catholica ex- 

positio ecclesiastica . . . seu bibliotheca expositionum N. T. 
2°, Geney. 1561, al. 


s 


EXEGETICAL LITERATURE. xlvii 


MATTHAEI ee Friedrich von), + 1811, Prof. of Class. Lit. at Moscow : 
INS . Graece et Latine. Varias lectiones . . . ex centum codici- 
bus Mss. yulgavit . . . scholia Graeca . . . addidit animadversiones 
criticas adjecit et edidit C. F. Matthaei. 12 voll. 8°, Rigae, 1782-83, 

Mayer (Ferdinand Georg), Prof. of Greek and Heb. at Vienna: Beitrige zur 
Erklirung des Evang. Matthaei fiir Sprachkundige. 8°, Wien, 1818. 

Menancutuon (Philipp), + 1560, Reformer : Breves commentarii in Matthaeum. 

8°, Argentor. 1523, al. 

Menocuro (Giovanni Stefano), + 1655, Jesuit at Rome: Brevis expositio sensus 
litteralis totius Scripturae. ee) fe \colllt 2°, Colon. 1630, al. 

MeuscHen (Johann Gerhard), + 1743, Prof. Theol. at Coburg: Novum Testa- 
mentum ex Talmude et antiquitatibus Hebraeorum llustratum curis 

. B. Scheidii, J. H. Danzii et J. Rhenferdi, editumque cum suis 
propriis dissertationibus a J. G. Meuschen. 49, Taps. 1736. 

Meyer (Johann Friedrich von), + 1849, Jurist in Frankfort : Die heilige Schrift 

in berichtigter Uebersetzung Martin Luther’s mit kurzen Anmerkun- 


gen. 3 Theile. 8°, Frankf. 1518, ai. 
Micuartis (Johann David), + 1791, Prof. Or. Lit. at Géttingen : Uebersetzung 
des N. T. 2 Bande. 49 Gotting. 1790. 
Anmerkungen fiir Ungelehrte zu seiner Uebersetzung des N. T. 4 

Theile. 4°, Gotting. 1790-92. 

Maz (John), D.D., + 1707, Principal of St. Edmund’s Hall, Oxford : Novum 
Testamentum Graecum cum lectionibus variantibus .. . et in easaem 

NOtiss =. 2°, Oxon. 1707. 
Collectionem Millianam recensuit . . . suisque accessionibus 

locupletay it Ludolphus Kusterus. 2°, Amstel. 1710. | 


Mo tpennaver (Johann Heinrich Daniel), + 1790, Pastor at Hamburg: DasN. T. 
tibersetzt und so erklirt dass ein jeder Ungelehrter es verstehen kann. 

2 Bande. 8°, Quedlimb,. 1787-88. 

Motter (Sebastian Heinrich), + 1827, Pastor at Gierstidt in Gotha : Neue An. 
sichten schwieriger Stellen aus den vier Evang. 8°, Gotha, 1819. 
Morison (James), D.D., Prof. Theol. to the Evangelical Union, Glasgow : Com- 
mentary on the Gospel according to Matthew. 8°, Lond. 1870. 
Munster (Sebastian), + 1552, Prof. Heb. at Heidelberg : Evangelium secundum 
Matthaeum in lingua Hebraica, cum versione Latina atque succinctis 
annotationibus. 2°, Basil. 1537. 
Mountue (Kaspar Fredrik), + 1763, Prof. of Greek at Copenhagen : Observya- 
tiones philologicae in sacros N. T. libros, ex Diodoro Siculo collectae. 

8°, Hafn. 1755. 

Muscunus [Mevssiin] (Wolfgang), + 1573, Prof. Theol. at Berne : Commenta- 
rlus in Matthaeum. 2°, Basil, 1548, al. 


Nast (William) : A Commentary on the Gospels of Matthew and Mark. 
8vo", pp. 760, Cincinnati, 1864. 
Newcome (William), D.D., + 1800, Archbishop of Armagh: An harmony of the 
Gospels. . . . Observations subjoined. 2°, Lond. 1778, al. 
NicEetas Serrariensis. See CorpErtus. 
Norton (Andrews), + 1853, formerly Prof. Sac. Lit. at Harvard: A translation 


of the Gospels, with notes. 2 vols. 8°, Boston, U. S., 1855. 
Novarino (Luigi), + 1658, Theatine monk: Matthaeus expensus, sive notae in 
Evangelium Matthaei, .. . 2°, Venet. 1629. 
Marcus expensus. ... 2°, Lugd. 1642. 
Lucas expensus. . . . 2°, Lugd. 1643. 
Oxcontampapius (Johann) [Hav SSCHELN ], + 1531, Pastor at Basel: Enarrationes 
in Evangelium Matthaei. 8°, Basil. 1536. 
OLEARIUS ( Gottfried), +1715, Prof. Theol. at Leipzig : Observationes sacrae ad 
Evangelium Matthaei. 49, Lips. 1713, al. 


OxsHAUSEN (Hermann), + 1839, Prof. Theol. at Erlangen ; Biblischer Commentar 

tiber sammtliche Schriften des N. T. Fortgesetzt von J. H. A. Ebrard 

and A. Wiesinger. 7 Bande. 8°, Kénigsb. 1830-62. 
[Translated in ‘‘ Foreign Theological Library.’’ 9 vols. 

8°, Edin. 1847-63. | 


xlvili EXEGETICAL LITERATURE. 


OricEnes, + 254, Catechist at Alexandria: Commentaria in Matthaei Evange- 
lium; Series veteris interpretationis commentariorum Origenis in 
Matthaeum ; Homiliae in Lucam: Commentarii in Evangelium Jo- 
annis ; Commentaria in Epist. ad Romanos; Fragmenta in Lucam, 
Acta Apostolorum, Epistolas Pauli. [Opera. Ed. Bened. III., 1V.|— 
Philocalia, de obseuris 8. 8. locis . . . ex variis Origenis commen- 
tarlis excerpta. ... 4°, Paris. 1609, al. 

OstANDER (Andreas), + 1552, Prof. Theol. at Kénigsberg : Harmoniae evangel- 
icae libri quatuor, Graece et Latine. . . . Item elenchus Harmoniae : 
adnotationum liber unus. 2°, Basil. 1537, al. 

Owen (John J.): A Commentary on the Gospels of Matthew and Mark. 

12°, pp. 513, New York, 1866. 


Pawatret (Elias), + 1765, French pastor at London: Observationes philologico- 
eriticae in sacros N. F. libros, quorum plurima loca ex auctoribus po- 
tissimum Graecis exponuntur. ... 8°, Lugd. Bat. 1752. 
Specimen exercitationum philol.-crit. in sacros N. F, libros. 

8°, Lond. 1755. 

Pargus (David) [WaEncieR], + 1622, Prof. Theol. at Heidelberg : Commenta- 
rius in Matthaeum. 49” Oxon. 1631. 

Pauuus (Heinrich Eberhard Gottlob), + 1851, Prol. Eccl. Hist. at Heidelberg : 
Philologisch-kritischer und historischer Commentar tiber das N. T. 4 


Theile. 8°, Leip. 1800-04. 
Exegetisches Handbuch iiber die drei ersten Evangelien. 3 Theile in 
6 Hilften. 8°, Heidelb. 1830-33. 


Pearce (Zachary), D.D., + 1774, Bishop of Rochester: A commentary, with 
notes, on the four Evangelists and Acts of the Apostles. . . . 2 vols. 
4°, Lond. 1777. 
Petiican (Konrad), + 1556, Prof. Heb, at Zirich : Commentarii in libros V. ac 
N. Testamenti. 7 voll. 2°, Tiguri, 1532-37. 
Piscator [Fiscuer] (Johann), + 1626, Conrector at Herborn : Commentarii in 
omnes libros V. et N. Testamenti. 4 voll. 2°, Herbornae, 1643-45. 
[In omnes libros N. T. 2 voll. 49, Herbornae, 1613. ] 
Puanck (Heinrich), + 1831, Prof. Theol. at Gédttingen: Entwurf einen neuen 
synoptischen Zusammenstellung der drey ersten Evangelien. .. . 
8°, Gotting. 1809. 
Pootz [Potus] (Matthew), + 1679, Nonconformist : Synopsis criticorum alio- 
rumque 8, 8S. interpretum et commentatorum. 5 voll. 
2°, Lond. 1669-74, al. 
Possrxvs (Peter), + c. 1650, Jesuit at Rome: Spicilegium, seu commentaria in 
loca selecta quatuor Evangeliorum. 2°, Romae, 1673. Catena Patrum 


Graecorum unius et viginti in Matthaeum. 2°, Tolosae, 1646. 
Pricazvs [Price] (John), + 1676, Prof. of Greek at Pisa : Commentarii in varios 
ING elibrosay |. 0. 2°, Lond. 1660. 


PrimstLEY (Joseph), + 1804, formerly Unitarian minister: Harmony of the 
Evangelists in Greek, to which are prefixed critical dissertations in 
English. 4°, Lond, 1777 [and in English, 1780]. 


Razanus Mavrus, + 856, Archbishop of Mentz: Commentarii in Evangelium 
Matthaei. [Opera.] 
RapBertus (Paschasius), + 865, Abbot at Corbie: Expositionis in Evangelium 
Matthaei libri duodecim. [Opera, ed. Sirmond, I.] 
Rinck (Wilhelm Friedrich), Pastor at Grenzach in Baden : Lucubratio critica 
in Act. App. Epistolas catholicas et Paulinas in qua. . . observationes 
ad plurima loca cum Apostoli tum Evangeliorum dijudicanda et emen- 
danda proponuntur. 8°, Basil. 1830. 
REICHEL (Vincent), Prof. N. T. Exeg. at Prague : Quatuor sacra Evangelia in 
pericopas harmon. chronologice ordinatas dispertita . . . 2 partes. 
8°, Prag. 1840. 
Reuss (Edouard), Prof. Theol, at Strassburg : La Bible.— Traduction nouvelle 
avec introductions et commentaires.—N. T. 1° partie, Histoire evan- 
gelique (Synopse des trois premiers Eyangiles) ; 2° partie, Histoire 
Apostolique (Actes des Apotres), 8°, Paris, 1874-76. 


EXEGETICAL LITERATURE. xlix 


Rogison (Edward), D.D., + 1864, Prof. Bib. Lit. at New York: A harmony of 
the four Gospels in Greek. 8°, Boston, U. 8., 1845, al. 
A Greek and English lexicon of the N. T. 8°, Boston, 1836, al. [Hd- 
ited by A. Negris and J. Duncan, Edin. 1844, al. ; and by S. 'T. Bloom- 
field, Lond. 1837, al.] 

RoeEpicerR (Moritz), + 1837, Pastor at Halle: Synopsis Evangeliorum . . . Tex- 


tum... ex ordine Griesbachiano dispertitum cum varia scriptura 

selecta edidit M. Roediger. 8", Hal. 1829. 
RosENMULLER (Johann Georg), + 1815, Prof. Theol. at Leipzig : Scholia in N. T. 
5 voll. 8°, Nuremb. 1777, al. 

Rus (Johann Reinhard), + 1738, Prof. Theol. at Jena; Harmonia Evangelis- 
tarum. . . . 3 partes in 4 voll. 8°, Jenae, 1727-30. 

Sa (Manoel), + 1596, Portuguese Jesuit : Notationes in totam sacram Scrip- 
taram. ... . 49, Antverp. 1598, al. 
Scholia in quatuor Evangelia, . . 4°, Antverp. 1596, al. 


Satmeron (Alphonso), } 1585, Spanish Jesuit : Commentarii in Evangelicam 
Historiam et in Acta Apostolorum [in omnes Epistolas et Apocalyp- 
sin]. 16 voll. 2°, Matriti, 1597-1602, al. 

Sanp [Sanprus] (Christoph), + 1680, Socinian, residing at Amsterdam : Inter- 
pretationes paradoxae quatuor Evangeliorum. o € 

"80, Cosmopoli [Amstel. ], Bee al. 

ScaticER (Joseph Justus), + 1609, Hon. Prof. at Leyden : Notae in N. T 
In N. T. Graec. 8°, Lond. 1622, a/., and in the Critici sacri. | 

Scurce (Peter), R. C. Prof. of N. T. Exegesis at Miinich : Evangelium nach 
Matthius iibersetzt und erklart. 3 Bande. 8° Miinch. 1856-58. 

Scurauitz (Samuel Christian), Prof. at Erfurt: Grundzitige des neutestament- 
lichen Gricititt. 8°, Giessen, 1861. 

Scutevsner (Johann Friedrich), + 1831, Prof. Theol. at Wittenberg : Novum 
lexicon Graeco-latinum in N, T. 2 voll. 8°, Lips. 1792, al. 

ScHLicHtine (Jonas), + 1564, Socinian teacher at Racow : Commentaria post- 
huma in Bic bade N. T. libros. 2 partes. 

2°, Irenopoli [Amstel.], 1656. 

Scumip (Erasmus), + 1637, Prof. of Greek at Leipzig : Opus sacrum posthumum, 
in quo continentur versio N. T. nova. . . et notae et animadversiones 
in idem. 2°, Norimb. 1658. 

Scumip (Sebastian), + 1696, Prof. Theol. at Strassburg: Biblia sacra; sive 
Testamentum VY. et N., ex linguis originalibus in linguam Latinam 
translatum. . . 40, Argent. 1696. 

Scumipr (Johann Ernst Christian), + 1831, Prof. of Eecl. Hist. in Giessen : 
Philologisch-kritische Clavis wber des N. oe 8°, Gissae, 1796-1805. 

Scuouz (Johann Martin Augustin), + 1853, R. C. Prof. Theol. in Bonn : Novum 
Testamentum Graece. Textum ad fidem testium criticorum recensuit, 
lectionum familias subjecit ... ex Graecis codd. mss. .. . copias 
criticas addidit J. M. Aug. Scholz. 2 voll. 4°, Lips. 1830-35. 
Die heilige Schrift des N. T. tibersetzt, erklirt und . . . erliiutert. 

8°, Frankf. 1828-30. 

Scuorr (Heinrich August), + 1835, Prof. Theol. at Jena: Novum Testamentum 


Graece nova versione Latina illustratum . .. praecipuaque lectionis 
et interpretationis diversitate instructum. 8°, Lips. 1805, ai. 
Scu6TTGEN (Christian), + 1751, Rector in Dresden : Horae Hebraicae et Talmu- 
dicae in N. T. 2 partes. 4°, Dresd. et Lips. 1733-42. 
Novum lexicon Graeco-Latinum in N. T. 8°, Lips. 1746, al. 


Scuuuz (David), + 1854, Prof. Theol. at Breslau : Novum Testamentum Graece 
[Griesbachii]. Vol. I, Evangelia complectens. Editionem tertiam 
emendatam et auctam curavit D. Schulz. 8°, Berol. 1827 
De aliquot N, T, locorum lectione et interpretatione. 

8°, Vratisl. 1833. 

Scuuretus (Abraham), + 1625, Prof. Theol. at Heidelberg: Exercitationes 
evangelicae. . . 4°, Amstel. 1624. 

SEILER (Georg Friedrich), + 1807, Prof. Theol. at Erlangen : Uebersetzung der 
Schriften das N. T. mit beigefiigten Erklirungen dunkler und 
schwerer Stellen. 2 Theile. 8°, Erlangen, 1806. 


] EXEGETICAL LITERATURE. 


Srvin (Hermann), Theol. tutor at Heidelberg: Die drei ersten Evangelien 


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[Opera. Vol. IV.] 


THE GOSPEL OF MATTHEW. 


INTRODUCTION. 


SEC. I.—BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICE OF MATTHEW. 


VYAZEGARDING the life and ministry of the Apostle Matthew, ex- 
ceedingly little is known to us that is historically certain. In 
¥ Mark ii. 14, his father is named Alphaeus. According to Euthy- 
( WG mius Zigabenus, Grotius on Matt. ix. 9, Paulus, Bretschneider, 

Credner, Ewald, and others, this individual is said to have been 
identical with the father of James the Less. But this assumption is 
rendered extremely improbable by the circumstance, that in the lists of 
the apostles (Matt. x. 3 ; Mark iii. 18 ; Luke vi. 15 ; Acts i. 18) Matthew 
is not grouped along with that James, and that the name "DON was of very 
frequent occurrence, and it would only be admissible if in Mark ii. 14 the 
name Levi designated a different person from the Apostle Matthew, in which 
case Levi would not have been an apostle. 

It was Matthew who, before he passed over to the service of Jesus, was 
called Levi, and was a collector of taxes by the lake of Tiberias, where he 
was called away by Jesus from the receipt of custom. From Matt. ix. 9, 
compared with Mark ii. 14 and Luke v. 27, it is sufficiently evident that the 
two names Matthew and Levi denote the same individual ; for the agree- 
ment between these passages in language and contents is so obvious, that 






Levi, who is manifestly called to be an apostle, and whose name is yet want- 
ing in all the lists of the apostles, must be found again in that Matthew 
who 7s named in all these lists ; so that we must assume that, in conformity 
with the custom of the Jews to adopt on the occasion of decisive changes in 
their life a name indicative of the change, he called himself, after his en- 
trance on the apostolate, no longer 19, but “SID, Ze. IED (Theodore = 
Gift of God). This name, as in the cases of Peter and Paul, so completely 
displaced the old one, that even in the history of his call, given in our Gos- 
pel of Matthew, he is, at the expense of accuracy, called, in virtue of a his- 
torical torepov mpérepov, by the new name (ix. 9) ; while Mark, on the other 
hand, and after him Luke, observing here greater exactness, designate the 
tax-gatherer, in their narrative of his call, by his Jewish name, in doing 
which they might assume that his identity with the Apostle Matthew was 
universally known ; while in their lists of the apostles (Mark iii. 18 ; Luke vi. 


Y 
2 THE GOSPEL OF MATTHEW. 


15 ; Actsi. 18), where the apostolic names must stand, they rightly place 
the name Matthew. 

In this way we dispose of the view, opposed to the prevailing tradition, 
that Matthew and Levi were two different individuals (Heracleon in Clement 
of Alexandria, Stra. iv. 9, p. 505, ed. Potter ; and Origen, c. Celswm, i. 
13), and yet two tax-gatherers (Grotius, Michaelis, and Sieffert, Ursprung 
d. erst. kanon. Hoang. p. 59, Neander, Bleek doubtfully}, where Sieffert 
supposes that in the Gospel of Matthew the similar history of the call of 
Levi was referred through mistake by the Greek editor to Matthew, because 
the latter also was a tax-gatherer. So also, substantially, Ewald, Keim, 
Grimm in the Stud. u. Kritik. 1870, p. 723 ff. From Clement of Alexan- 
dria, Paedag. ii. 1, p. 174, ed. Potter, we learn that the Apostle Matthew 
was an adherent of that stricter Jewish-Christian asceticism which refrained 
from eating animal food (comp. on Rom. xiv. 1 ff.) ; and we have no reason 
to doubt that statement. Regarding his labors beyond the limits of Pales- 
tine (é9’ érépove, Euseb. H. #. iii. 24) nothing certain is known, and it is 
only more recent writers who are able to mention particular countries as the 
field of his labor, especially Ethiopia (Rufinus, H. HL. x. 9 ; Socrates, H. Z. 
i. 19 ; Nicephorus, ii. 41), but also Macedonia and several Asiatic countries. 
See, generally, Cave, Antiguitt. Ap. p. 553 ff. ; Florini, Hercitatt. hist. 
philol. p. 23 ff. ; Credner, Hinleitung, I. p. 59. His death, which accord- 
ing to Socrates took place in Ethiopia, according to Isidore of Seville, in 
Macedonia, is already stated by Heracleon (in Clement of Alexandria, 
Strom. iv. 9, p. 595, ed. Potter) to have been the result of natural causes ; 
which is also confirmed by Clement, Origen, and Tertullian, in so far as 
they mention only Peter, Paul, and James the Elder as martyrs among the 
apostles. As to his alleged death by martyrdom (Nicephorus, ii. 41), see 
the Roman martyrology on the 21st Sept. (the Greek Church observes the 
18th Nov.), Acta et Martyr. Matth. in Tischendorf’s Acta Apost. Apoer. p. 
167 ff. 


SEC. IIL.—APOSTOLIC ORIGIN AND ORIGINAL LANGUAGE OF 
THE GOSPEL. 


(1.) In the form in which the Gospel now exists, it cannot have originally 
proceeded from the hands of the Apostle Matthew. The evidence in favour of 
this view consists not merely of the many indefinite statements of time, 
place, and other things which are irreconcilable with the living recollection 
of an apostolic eye-witness and a participator in the events, even upon the 
assumption of a plan of arrangement carried out mainly in accordance with 
the subject-matter ; not merely in the partial want of clearness and direct- 
ness, which is a prominent feature in many of the historical portions (even 
ix. 9 ff. included), and not seldom makes itself felt to such a degree that 
we must in this respect allow the preference to the accounts of Mark and 
Luke ; not merely in the want of historical connection in the citation and in- 
troduction of a substantial portion of the didactic discourses of Jesus, by 
which the fact is disclosed that they were not originally interwoven in a liy- 


INTRODUCTION. 3 


ing connection with the history ; but also—and these elements are, in con- 
nection with the above, decisive—the reception of narratives, the unhistor- 
ical character of which must certainly have been known to an apostle (such 
as, even in the history of the Passion, that of the watchers by the grave, and 
of the resurrection of many dead bodies); the reception of the preliminary 
history with its legendary enlargements, which far oversteps the original be- 
ginning of the gospel announcement (Mark i. 1, comp. John i. 19) and its 
original contents (Acts x. 37 ff. ; Papias in Eusebius, H. H. iii. 89: ra iz 
Tov Xplorov 7) AcxOévta ) cpaxbévra, ‘‘ the things which were spoken or done 
by Christ”), and which already presents a later historical formation, added to 
the original gospel history ; the reception of the enlarged narrative of the 
Temptation, the non-developed form of which in Mark is certainly older ; 
but most strikingly of all, the many, and in part very essential, corrections 
which our Matthew must receive from the fourth Gospel, and several of 
which (especially those relating to the last Supper and the day of Jesus’ 
death, as well as to the appearances of the risen Saviour) are of such a kind 
that the variations in question certainly exclude apostolic testimony on one 
side, and this, considering the genuineness of John which we must decided- 
ly assume,-can only affect the credibility of Matthew. To this, moreover, 
is to be added the relation of dependence (see Section IV.) which we must 
assume of our Matthew upon Mark, which is incompatible with the compo- 
sition of the former by an apostle. 

(2.) Nevertheless, it must be regarded as a fact, placed beyond all doubt by the 
tradition of the church, that our Matthew is the Greek translation of an orig- 
inal Hebrew (Aramaic) writing, clothed with the apostolic authority of Matthew 
as the author. So ancient and unanimous is this tradition. For (a) Papias, 
a pupil, not indeed (not even according to Irenaeus, v. 33. 4) of the Apost/e 
John, but certainly of the Presbyter, says,’ according to the statement of 
Eusebius (iii. 39), in the fragment there preserved of his work Aoyiav kupraxav 
egqyyowc,” ‘‘ Exposition of our Lord’s discourses :” Marfaiog pév obv EBpaids 


1 Eusebius introduces the above-quoted 
Statement regarding Matthew with these 
words: wept 6€ tod Mar@aiov taita eipyrat. 
There can be no doubt that these are the 
words of Husebius, and that their meaning 
is, “regarding Matthew, however, it is thus 
stated (in Papias),”’ since there immediately 
precede the words tatra pév oby iatépytar TO 
Ilavia rept tod Mapxov. It may be doubted, 
however, whether Eusebius, as he has just 
quoted with regard to Mark what Papias 
relates concerning him from a communica- 
tion received from the Presbyfer, meant to 
quote the statement of Papias which fol- 
lows respecting Matthew as derived from 
the same source or not. As Eusebius, how- 
ever, in what precedes, refers to the Pres- 
byter only the statement of Papias regard- 
ing Mark, and that purposely at the very 
beginning (avayxaiws viv mpo@jcouev.. . 
Tapadoow, nv mept MapKov éxréGertar dca 


TOUTWV' Kai TOVTO 0 TpeaBUTEpos EAcye’ Mapkos, 
«.7.A.,°* We shall now perforce set forth.... 
a tradition which was put forward respect- 
ing Mark in these words ; and the Presbyter 
said this, Mark, ete.”); as he, on the other 
hand, introduces the statement regarding 
Matthew with the quite simple expression 
mept 6€ Tov Mat8. ravra eipytrar, Without again 
making any mention of the Presbyter,—we 
can thus discover no sufficient reason for 
taking this statement also to be derived 
froma communication of the Presbyter. It 
contains, rather, only the simple quotation 
of what Papias says regarding Matthew. 
This in answer to Sieffert, Ebrard, Thiersch, 
Delitzsch, and others. 

* See on Papias and his fragment, Holtz- 
mann, Synopt. Hvang. p. 248 ff.; Weizsiicker, 
Untersuch. vib. d. ewang. Geschichte, p. 27 ff. 5 
Ewald, Jahrb. VI. p. 55 ff.; Steitz in Her- 
zog’s Encykl. XI. p. 79 f.; Zyro, neue Be- 


L THE GOSPEL OF MATTHEW. 
‘ 

duaréxtw Ta Adyta ovverdzato (al. ovveypdrpato), ypyhvevoe 0 avta Oc Av dvvaro¢ 
éxactoc : ‘‘Matthew wrote (lit. put together) the discourses in the Hebrew 
dialect, and each one interpreted them as he could.” An attempt has indeed 
been made to weaken this very ancient testimony, reaching back to the very 
apostolic age, that Matthew wrote in Hebrew, by means of the well-known 
odddpa yap outxpoc yv Tov voov’* ‘*for he was a man of small understanding,” 
which Eusebius states regarding Papias ; but Eusebius by that expression 
refers to what he had stated immediately before regarding the millenarian- 
ism of the man. <A simple historical remark, which stood in no connection 
either with millenarianism or with accounts of fabulous miracles (to which 
Papias, according to.Eusebius, was inclined), cannot, owing to that de- 
preciatory judgment, be @ priori regarded as suspicious, especially if, as in 
the present case, there is added the confirmation of the whole subsequent . 
tradition of the church. The supposition, however, that Papias is indebted 
for his statement to the Nazarenes and Ebionites (Wetstein, Hug), is pure 
imagination ; since one narrative, which he had in common with the Gos- 
pel according to the Hebrews (Eusebius, ili. 39: éxréMevrar dé Kat adAnv 
lotopiav rept yvvaikdcg émi ToAAaic duaptiace diaBAnbeiong eri tov Kuptov, PY TO 
Kal? ‘EBpatove ebayyéAcov mweprévec, ‘‘he mentions also another 
history about a woman, accused before the Lord of many sins, which the 
gospel according to the Hebrews contains,” where these last words belong 
to Eusebius, and do not contain a remark of Papias), stands altogether 
without any reference to the above statement concerning Matthew. (0) 
Irenaeus, Haer. iii. 1. 1, relates: 6 pév dy Marfaiog év Toig ‘EBpaiow TH iia 
OlLaAEKTH AVTOY Kai ypagny EEHvEyKEev Evayyediov, Tov Tlétpov x. Tov TabaAov év ‘Poun 
evayyedfouévav Kk. Oeuehobvtar tiv éxxAnoiav, ‘‘ Matthew also published a gos- 
pel, among the Hebrews, in their own dialect, when Peter and Paul were 
in Rome, and were founding the Church.” Against this it has been ob- 
jected, that Irenaeus borrowed his judgment. from Papias, whom he es- 
teemed very highly as the friend of Polycarp (Haer. v. 33). But, irrespec- 
tive of this, that if this objection is to deprive the testimony of weight, the 
authority of Papias must first fall to the ground, it is extremely arbitrary, 
seeing we have now no longer any other authorities contemporary with Pa- 
pias, to regard him, and no one else, as the author of the tradition in ques- 
tion, which, yet, is uncontradicted throughout the whole of ecclesiastical 
antiquity. And Irenaeus was not the man to repeat at random. See Ter- 
tullian, de test. anim. i. ; Hieronymus, ep. ad Magn. 85. (¢) Of Pantaenus, 
Eusebius (v. 10) says: 6 Idvrawoc kai ei¢ Ivdod¢ (probably the inhabitants of 
Southern Arabia) éAfeiy Aéyerar’ vba Adyoc ebpeiv aitov TpodGdcav THY aiTod 


leucht. d. Papiasstelle, 1869; Zahn in the Stud. 
u. Kritik. 1866, p. 649 ff. ; Riggenbach in the 
Jahrb. f. D. Theologie, 1868, p. 319 ff. In an- 
swer to the two last (who regard Papias as 
a pupil of the Apostle John), see Steitz in the 
Stud. u. Kritik. 1868, p. 63 ff., and in the 
Jahrb. f. D. Theologie, 1869, p. 188 ff. ; comp. 
also Overbeck in Hilgenfeld’s Zeitschrift, 
1867, p. 35 ff., and Hilgenfeld, ibidem, p. 179 


ff. [also, D. Papias-Fragment, von Wilh. 
Weiffenbach, Giessen 1874; and D. Papias- 
Fragment, von Carl L. Leimbach, Gotha 
1875.—Ep.]. 

1The counterbalance of praise, that Pa- 
pias Was ort waAtoTa AoyLWTaTos Kal THS ypaphys 
eldjuwv (Eusebius, iii. 36), falls to the 
ground, as these words are spurious. 


INTRODUCTION. 5 


mapovoiay Td Kata MarOaiov evayyéAvov rapa tow avréhe Tov Xpiorov éxeyvoxdow, 
ol¢ BapOodouaiov Tov arooréAwy éva knpiEat, avtoig Te ‘EBpaiwy ypaypace tiv Tov 
MarOaiov xatareipar ypagoyv’ fv kat odlechat cic Tov SyAovpevov ypdvor, ‘* Pantae- 
nus is also said to have gone to the Indians ; the story is that he found 
there the gospel of Matthew, among some who had the knowledge of 
Christ before his arrival : to whom Bartholomew, one of the apostles, is 
said to have preached, and to have left with them the gospel of Matthew in 
the Hebrew, which was also preserved among them to the time indicated.” 
This testimony, which is certainly independent of the authority of Papias, 
records, indeed, a legend; but this description refers not to the Hebrew 
Matthew of itself, but to the statement that Pantaenus fownd it among the In- 
dians, and that Bartholomew had brought it thither (Thilo, Acta Thomae, p. 
108 f.). Irrespective of this, Pantaénus, in keeping with his whole position 
in life, certainly knew so much Hebrew that he could recognize a Hebrew 
Matthew as such. If, however, the objection has often been raised, that it 
is not clear from the words whether an original Hebrew writing or a trans- 
lation into Hebrew is meant (see also Harless, Lucubr. evangelia canon. spec- 
tant. Erlangen 1841, I. p. 12), there speaks in favour of the former view 
the tradition of the entire ancient church concerning the original Hebrew 
writing of Matthew, a tradition which is followed by Eusebius (see after- 
wards, under ¢) ; he must therefore have actually designated it as a transla- 
tion, if he did not wish to recall the fact which was universally known, 
that the Gospel was composed in Hebrew. The same holds true of the ac- 
count by Jerome, de vir. illust. 36 : ‘‘ Reperit [Pantaenusin India], Barthol- 
omaeum de duodecim apostolis adventum Domini nostri Jesu Christi juxta 
Matthaci evangelium praedicasse, quod Hebraicis, literis scriptum revertens 
Alexandriam secum detulit.” (d) Origen in Eusebius, vi. 25 : ére rpérov 
pév yéypantar TO Kata Tov ToTé TeAdvyY, LoTepov dé axdotoAov "Iyc0v Xpiarow 
MarOaiov, éxdedwxdta aitd Toig ard "Iovdaiopov mioTebtoacr ypdupaow ‘EBpaixoic 
ovvtetaypévov, ‘* The first written was that by him, who was once a publican, 
but afterwards an apostle of Jesus Christ, Matthew, who gave it to Jewish 
believers, composed in Hebrew.” He indicates tradition, indeed, as the 
source of his narrative (d¢ év rapadécer wabov) 3 but the witness of tradition 
on so thoroughly undogmatic a point from the mouth of a critical and 
learned investigator, who, in so doing, expresses neither doubt nor dis- 
agreement, contains especial weight ; while to make Origen derive this 
tradition from Papias and Irenaeus (Harless, J.c. p. 11), is just as arbitrary 
as to derive it merely from the Jewish Christians, and, on that account, to 
relegate it to the sphere of error. (e) Eusebius, iii. 24 : Mar@aioc piv yap 
mporepov ‘EBpaioe Kypb§ac, ag éueAdre cal éd’ éErépove iévar, TaTpiw yAotTy ypagn 
Tapadovg TO Kat’ avTov evayyéAiov, TO AEimov TH avTOv Tapovoia TobTOLC ad’ OV 
éatéAheto, dia THE ypadye arerAnjpov, ‘‘ For Matthew, having formerly preached 
to the Hebrews, when he was about to go to other peoples delivered to 
them in their own language, the gospel according to him ; and thus sup- 
plied by this gospel the lack of his presence among them.” Comp. ad 
Marin. Quaest. ii. in Mai, Script. vet. nov. collectio, I. p. 64 f.: AédAexrar dé 
opé TOV caBBatov Tapa Tov éEpunvebaavtoc TY ypadyv’ 6 uév yap evayyedtoTtHe Mart- 


6 THE GOSPEL OF MATTHEW. 


Aaioc "EBaide yAdrty mapéOwxe TO ebayyédsov, K.T.A., ‘It was read, late upon the 
Sabbath, by a translator ; for Matthew published his gospel in the Hebrew 
tongue.” It is already evident from the latter passage that Eusebius relates 
that the Gospel was composed in Hebrew, not merely as a matter of his- 
tory, but that he himself also adopted that view, against which his own re- 
mark on Ps. lxxvili. 2 has been erroneously appealed to (in Montfaucon, 
Collect. Patr. Grec. I. p. 466) 3 avti tov o6éyE0uar rpoBAquata an’ apyxig ‘EBpai- 
oc OY 6 Marhaiog oikeia éxddcer KéypyTac eitov’ Epevfouar Kexpuupéva ATO KaTAaBoARe. 
‘Instead of ‘I will speak forth dark sayings from of old,’ Matthew, being 
a Hebrew, used his own edition, saying: ‘ I will proclaim things hidden from 
the foundation.’” For oixeia éxdécec cannot here be his own (Greek) transla- 
tion of the passage of the Hebrew psalm (Marsh, Hug, and several others), 
but only—as the reference to EGpaioc Hv, and the antithesis to Aguila which 
there follows, clearly show—a vernacular, 7.e. Hebrew edition of the original 
text, so that the meaning is : Matthew transcribed the words of the psalm 
from a Hebrew edition into his (Hebrew) Gospel ; the result of which was, 
that in the Greek they now agree neither with the LXX. (@@éyZoua mpoBay- 
pata ar’ apya¢) nor with Aquila, the Greek editions of which (av6’ od 6 pév 
"AkbAag’ OuBphow aiviywata é& apyiGev, éxdéduxev, ‘‘instead of which Aquila 
has expressed it: ‘I will pour forth riddles from the olden time’”’), Eusebius 
continues, had no influence on Matthew, who wrote in Hebrew. (jf) Cyril 
of Jerusalem, Catechet. 14 : Mar@aiog 6 ypdwac 7d evayyédtov ‘EBpaids yAwoon 
tovto éypawev, ‘‘ Matthew, the same who wrote the Gospel in the Hebrew dia- 
lect, wrote this.” (g) Epiphanius, Haer. xxx. 3: Mar@aio¢ pévoc ‘ESpaicri 
kal ‘EBpaixoic ypaupacw év TH kay SrabyKy Exothoato THY Tov EvayyeAiov ExOeoiv TE 
kai kppvyua, ‘* Matthew alone made his setting forth and proclamation of the 
Gospel in the New Testament according to the Hebrew and in Hebrew 
characters.” Comp. li. 5, also xxx. 6, where a converted Jew testifies that 
he discovered the Hebrew Matthew in a treasure-chamber. (h) Jerome, 
Praef. in Matt.: ‘‘ Matthaeus in Judaea evangelium Hebraeo sermone edidit 
ob eorum vel maxime causam, qui in Jesum crediderant ex Judaeis,” ‘‘ Mat- 
thew, in Judea, published the Gospel in the Hebrew language, chiefly for the 
sike of those who, from among the Jews, had believed on Jesus.” Comp. 
de vir. ill. 8, where he assures us that he discovered the original Hebrew 
text among the Nazarenes in Beroea in Syria, and that he transcribed it. 
Comp. also Hp. ad Damas. IV. p. 148, ed. Paris ; ad Hedib. 1V. p. 173 ; in 
Jes. III. p. 64 ; im Hos, III. p. 134. — The testimonies of Gregory Nazianzen, 
Chrysostom, Augustine, and of later Fathers, may, after those already men- 
tioned, be passed over, as well as that also of the Syrian Church in Asse- 
mann’s Bibl. Orient. II. p. 8. —The weight of this unanimous and ancient 
tradition has secured acceptance down to the most recent times, notwith- 
standing the opposition of many critics,’ for the hypothesis that Mat- 
thew wrote in Hebrew (Richard Simon, Mill, Michaelis, Marsh, Storr, Cor- 
rodi, J. E. Ch. Schmidt, Haenlein, Eichhorn, Bertholdt, Ziegler, Kuinoel, 


1 See the history of this controversy in Credner, Hinleitung, I. p. 78 ff.; Neudecker, 
p. 195 ff. 


INTRODUCTION. % 


Gratz, Guericke, Olshausen, Klener (de authent. Ev. Matth., Gottingen 
1861), Sieffert, Ebrard, Baur, Weisse, Thiersch, Tholuck, Lange, Lu- 
thardt (de compos. Hv. Matth., Leipsic 1871), Giider (in Herzog’s Kn- 
eykl. IX. p. 166), and others). The opposite view of a Greek original of 
our Gospel, from which the polemic interest which operated in the older 
Protestantism, in opposition to tradition and the Vulgate, has long ago 
disappeared, is found in Erasmus, Cajetan, Beza, Calvin, Flacius, Gerhard, 
Calov., Erasmus Schmidt, Clericus, Lightfoot, Majus, Fabricius, Wetstein, 
Masch (Grundspr. d. Hv. Matth., Halle 1755), Schubert (Diss., Géttingen 
1810), Hug, Paulus, Fritzsche, Theile (in Winer’s and Engelhardt’s krit. 
Journal, Il. p. 181 ff. 346 ff.), Buslav (Diss., 1826), Schott, Credner, Volk- 
mar, Neudecker, Kuhn, B. Crusius, Harless, Thiersch (with reference to the 
canonical Matthew, which, according to him, is a second edition of the 
apostle’s original work in Hebrew), de Wette, Bleek, Ewald, Ritschl (in the 
theolog. Jahrb. 1851, p. 586 ff.), Késtlin (Ursprung wu. Kompos. der synopt. Hv., 
Stuttgart 1853), Hilgenfeld, Anger (Ratio, qud loci V. T. in Hv. Matth. 
laudantur, 3 Programme, Leipsic 1861 f.), Holtzmann (synopt. Hv. 1863), 
Tischendorf, Keim, and others, predominantly also by Delitzsch, but is en- 
tirely destitute of any external foundation, as the unanimous tradition of the 
church is rather insuperably opposed to it ; while to deduce the latter from an 
error occasioned by the Gospel according to the Hebrews (Bleek, Tischen- 
dorf, Keim, and others), is a decision of critical peremptoriness which must 
give way especially before the testimony of Jerome, who was minutely acquaint- 
ed with the Gospel according to the Hebrews, aswell as with the Hebrew Matthew. 
The loss of the Hebrew original is all the more explicable the more early 
and widely the Greek Matthew was circulated ; while the heretics obtained 
possession of the Hebrew work, and caused it to lose canonical authority. 
The internal grounds, moreover, on which stress has been laid, are sufficient 
only to show that our Matthew might be an original composition in Greek, but 
not that it is (actually) such. For the dissemination of the Greek language 
in Palestine at that time (Hug) so little excludes, especially considering the 
predilection of the people for their own language (Acts xxi. 40, xxii. 2), the 
composition of a Hebrew Gospel, that it only makes the early translation of 
such a work into Greek more conceivable. If, further, it has been observed 
(Credner, sec. 46) that to the Hebrew feminine 1) no male function (i. 18) 
can be ascribed without the antecedent medium of the Greek tongue, as in- 
deed in the Gospel according to the Hebrews the maternal position towards 
Christ is actually assigned to the Holy Spirit (Credner, Beitrdge, I. p. 402 f.); 
so, on the other hand, it holds good that in i. 18 no male function of 
the Spirit is at all spoken of, but a generation in which the specifically sev- 
ual meaning remains out of consideration, as, moreover, the Greek rveiua is 
not masculine. The unimportant play upon the word in vi. 16 might already 
have its impress in the original, but may also, either from intention or acci- 
dent, have originated with the translator. With respect to xxvii. 46, see 
the remarks in loc. The frequent identity of expression, moreover, in 
Matthew with Mark and Luke, does not necessarily point to an original 
composition of the former in Greek, but leaves this question quite unaffected, 


8 THE GOSPEL OF MATTHEW. 


as the translated Matthew might either have been made use of by the later Synop- 
tics, or might even have originated also from the use of the latter, or of common 
sources. The most plausible support for an original composition in Greek is 
found in the circumstance that a portion, although a small one, of the quo- 
tations from the Old Testament, especially those which are cited as Mes- 
sianic predictions (comp. Jerome, de vir. ill. 3; and see, especially, the 
copious dissertation by Credner, Beitrdge, I. p. 393 ff.; Bleek, Beitr. p. 57 
ff.; Ritschl, in the theolog. Jahrb. 1851, p. 520 ff. ; Késtlin, p. 36 ff.; Anger, 
l.c.; Holtzmann, p. 258 ff.; Keim, Gesch. Jesu, I. p. 59 ff.), do not follow 
the LXX., but deviate with more or less freedom from it, although taking ac- 
count also of the same, and follow the original text as the case requires. 
This presents the appearance of not being the work of a translator, who 
would have adhered more mechanically to the LXX. But, irrespective of 
the fact that this observation is by no means always beyond doubt with 
regard to the individual passages to which it is applied (Delitzsch in 
the Zeitschr. f. Luther. Theologie, 1850, p. 468 f., and Hntsteh. u. Anl. 
d. kanon. Ev. J. p. 13 ff.; Weiss in Stud. u. Kritik. 1861, p. 91 f.), we 
are not at liberty to prescribe limits so narrow either to the freedom and 
peculiarity of the manner of citation which was followed in the Hebrew 
work, or to that of the translator,—who, as generally throughout his work, 
so also in the rendering of the quotations, might go to work with pragmat- 
ic independence,—that the tradition of a Hebrew original of the Gospel 
would be excluded as incorrect. This conclusion no more follows, than it 
would be at all necessary to suppose that the translator must have had as 
the basis of his text that of a different writer, more familiar with the Old 
Testament (Baur); or that this variation betrays evidence of the hand of a 
second redactor (Hilgenfeld, Keim). 

(3.) The original Hebrew writing, however, from which our present Matthew 
procecded through being translated into Greek, must, apart from the language, 
have been in contents and form, in whole and in part, substantially the same 
as our Greek Matthew. The general evidence in favor of this view is, 
that throughout the ancient church our Greek Matthew was already used 
as if it had been the authentic text itself. Accordingly, although the 
church knew that it was a text which had arisen only through a transla- 
tion, it cannot have been aware of any essential deviation from the original. 
Jerome, however, in particular, de vir. il. 8,.who was minutely acquainted 
with the Hebrew original, and made a transcript of it, makes mention of 
it in such a way that the reader can only presuppose its agreement with the 
translation, and makes (on Matt. vi. 11, ad Hedib. IV. p. 173, on oé, xxviii. 
1) exegetical remarks, which rest upon the presupposition that it is a literal 
translation. The same holds true in reference to the passages of Eusebius 
quoted under 2 e. On the whole, no trace is anywhere found that the 
Greek Gospel in its relation to the original Hebrew work was regarded as 
anything else than a translation in the proper sense ; and therefore the 
opinion which has recently become current, that it is a free redaction, ex- 
tended by additions (Sieffert, Klener, Schott, iéiber d. Authenticit. d. Eo. 
Matth., 1834, Delitzsch), is destitute of all historical basis. If, however, 





INTRODUCTION. 9 


our Greek Gospel of Matthew is to be regarded as a simple translation, not 
as an altered and extended revision ; if, moreover, the Hebrew work, which 
was translated, consequently possessed, at the time when the translation 
was made, the same substantial extent, contents, and expression which are 
presented by our present Matthew,—then it follows, agreeably to what is 
observed under (1.), that the Hebrew document cannot have been composed by 
the apostle in the shape in which it was translated into Greek. 

(4.) Notwithstanding, the Apostle Matthew must have had in the Hebrew 
composition, of which our present Gospel is a translation, so substantial a part, 
that it could, on sufficient historical grounds, vindicate its claim to be regarded, 
in the ancient and universal tradition of the church, as the Hebrew evayyéAcov 
kata Mar@aiov. To ascertain what this part was, we must go back to the 
oldest of the witnesses in question, which in fact discloses the original rela- 
tion of the apostle to the Gospel which bears his name. The witness of 
Papias, namely, in Eusebius, iii. 39 (above under 2 a), declares that 
Matthew, and that in the Hebrew tongue, ‘‘rd Adyra cuverataro,” ‘* put togeth- 
er the discourses,” where the—to us unknown—context of the Fragment 
must have shown the Ady:a to be those of the Lord. According to this view, 
his own work, composed by himself, was a civragcc or (according to the 
reading cuveypaparo) Acvyypaoy Tov Aoyierv, consequently nothing else 
than a placing together, an orderly arrangement (comp. on civragic with gen, 
in this literal sense, Polybius, xxx. 4. 11, i. 4. ii. 8, iv. 5. 11; Diodorus 
Sic. i. 8, xiv. 117), of the sayings of the Lord (Acts vii. 38 ; Rom. iii. 2 ; 
Heb. v. 12; 1 Pet. iv. 11) ; as in the Classics also Aédyca is always used of 
sentences, especially divine, oracular sentences, and the like (Kriiger on 
Thucyd. ii. 8. 2). A similar undertaking was that of Papias himself, in his 
work : Aoyiwy Kupraxov é7jynowc, ‘exposition of the Lord’s discourses,” which 
consisted of five books (cvyypaupara). He also gave the Adyia of Christ ; 
but in such a way that he explained (é&yyjoato, comp. on John i. 18) their 
divine meaning historically (Eusebius himself quotes such a history), and 
from other sources (thus, according to Eusebius, he also made use of testi- 
monies from some New Testament Epistles); Matthew, on the other 
hand, had given noé&#yyor¢, but onlya civraécce of the Lord’s sayings. 
The work of Papias was an Jnterpretatio (Jerome : ‘‘ explanatio”) ; that of 
Matthew was only an orderly Collectio of the same. Schleiermacher in the 
Stud. u. Kritik. 1832, p. 735, has the merit of having brought forward and 
made good ' the precise and proper meaning of Adya : he has been rightly 





1 Although he did not correctly hit the 
meaning of the second part of the testimo- 
ny of Papias: npuyjvevoe 8 aita ws iv duvaros 
€xagtos. He referred this npuyvevo eto 
the explanation furnished by the addition of 
the relative histories. But the bearing of 
ypuyvevoe is to be sought simply in “Efpaté. 
Stadextw, So that the meaning which Papias 
wishes to convey must be this: every one 
translated (Xen. Anab. v. 4.4; Esdras iv. 7; 
additions to Esther vii. fin.) the Adyca, which 
were arranged together in Hebrew, accord- 


ing to his capacity,—which refers to that 
use which, whether ecclesiastically or pri- 
vately, the Greek Christians made of Mat- 
thew’s collection of Hebrew sayings, in 
order to render them intelligible, by such a 
process of translation, to those who needed 
a translation in order to understand them. 
They were translated (orally and in writing) 
by every one who undertook the work, as 
well as he was able to doit. When Papias 
wrote this, such a self-translation, varying 
always according to the capacity of each 


10 THE GOSPEL OF MATTHEW. 


followed by Schneckenburger, Ursprung des ersten kanon. Evang. 1834, by 
Lachmann inthe Stud. uw. Kritik. 1835, p. 577 ff., Credner, Weisse, Wiese- 
ler, B. Crusius, Ewald, Késtlin, Reuss, Weizsiicker, and others ;? also by 
Holtzmann, p. 251 ff.; Steitz in the Stud. wu. Kritik. 1868, p. 68 ; Grau, 
Entwickelungsgeschicht. d. N. T. I. p. 173 f.; Scholten, d. dlteste Huang. 
iibers. », Redepenning, 1869, p. 244 f. On the other hand, many others have 
found in the Aédya even evangelic history, so that it would be a designation 
_ @ potiori for the entire contents of a Gospel. So Liicke in the Stud. wu. 
Kritik. 1838, p. 501 f., Kern, Hug, Frommann in the Stud. u. Kritik. 1840, 
p- 912 ff., Harless, Ebrard, Baur, Delitzsch, Guericke, Bleek, Weiss 
(partly), Hilgenfeld, Thiersch, Giider, Luthardt, Kahnis, Anger, Keim, 
Zahn. This is quite untenable, because Papias shortly before designates the 
entire contents of a Gospel (that of Mark) in quite a different way, viz.: ra _ 
Ord: Tov Xpiotov 7) AexOévra i) Tpaybévra, ‘‘the things said or done by Christ” 
(comp. Acts i. 1) ; and because, in the title of his work : é&#yyow Tov Aoyiwy 
kuptakav, he undoubtedly understood the Adya in the proper sense of the word, 
i.e. Ta Aexbévra, effata, so that the history which his book contained be- 
longed not to the Adya, but to the éyxo01¢ Which he gave of the Aéyiec. And 
with a comparative glance at this his literary task, he says of Peter : oiy 
@omep civTatw TaV KUpLaKOY ToLobjmEvoG Adywy (Var. Aoyiwy), ‘‘not as if he were 
making a methodical arrangement of the Lord’s words”—words which are 
not therefore to be used to prove the identity of meaning between éy:a and 
AexOévra and rpaybévra (as is still done by Keimand Zahn) ; comp. § 4, Rem. 
1. On the other hand, our Matthew contains in its present shape so much 
proper history, so much that is not given as a mere accompaniment of the 
discourses, or as framework for their insertion, that the entire contents cannot 
be designated by the one-sided ra Adyva, especially if we look to the title of the 
work of Papias itself. The later Patristic usage of ra Adyia, however (in 
answer to Hug and Ebrard), does not apply here, inasmuch as the view, ac- 
cording to which the contents of the N. T. in general, even the historical parts, 
were regarded as inspired, and in so far as Adya Tov Oeov, did not yet exist in 
the time of Papias nor in his writings (Credner, Beitr. I. p. 23 f.; Kahnis, 
vom heilig. Geist. p. 210 ff.; Holtzmann, p. 251), against which view the dc 
yéypanra: in Barnabas 5 can prove nothing (comp. on John, Introd. § 2, 2). 
—According, then, to this opinion, the Apostle Matthew, agreeably to the 


individual, was no longer requisite, as our 
Greek Matthew had already attained eccle- 
siastical authority, and the Aoyca, originally 
written in Hebrew, were contained in it. 
It is because he was aware of ¢his that 
npenvevce is employed, and this ought not 
to have been called in question (Bleek, 
Holtzmann, and others); but it does not 
follow that the whole of our Gospel of 
Matthew (only composed in Hebrew) was 
the original work written by the apostle 
himself. 

1Comp. also Réville, Hiudes crit. sur St. 
Matth. 1862, p. 1 ff., who has sought to de- 


termine more exactly out of our Matthew 
the parts of the original Aoyra. Holtzmann’s 
view is different: he seeks to reconstruct 
the collection of sayings chiefly out of Luke. 
See his synopt. Hvang. p. 140 ff.; according 
to him, Luke made more use of it than 
Matthew, the 5th and 23d chapters of the 
latter being derived from special sources. 
Weizsicker, Weisse (protest. Kzeit. 1863, No. 
23), Grau, and others, rightly defend the 
view, that the collection of sayings is pre- 
ponderantly contained in the first Gospel, 
whose name already rests upon this. 


INTRODUCTION. ‘lok 


testimony of Papias, has composed a digest of the sayings of Christ,’ and that 
in the Hebrew tongue, but not yet a proper gospel history, although, per- 
haps, the Aéyca might be briefly accompanied, now and again, with special 
introductory remarks of a historical kind, and a gospel history was thereby, 
in some measure, formed beforehand. It is this collection of sayings now 
which obtained and secured for the Gospel, which was afterwards further 
elaborated out of it, the name of the apostle as author, the name eiayyéAsov 
The collection of Hebrew sayings, namely, such as it pro- 
ceeded from the apostle, was, in the hands of the Hebrew Christians, for 
whom it was intended, gradually expanded by the interweaving of the history 
into that gospel writing which, translated into Greek, presents itself in the 
present Gospel ; and which, under the name of the apostle, rightly obtained 


kata Maréaiov. 


the recognition of the church in so far that the ciytagic tov Adywv, Which 
was composed by Matthew himself, was substantially contained in it, and 

yas the kernel out of which the whole grew. This apostolic kernel by itself 
perished ; but the name of the apostle, which had passed over from it to 
the Hebrew Gospel work which so originated, led to the latter being re- 
garded as the original composition of Matthew himself,—a view which lies 
at the foundation of the testimonies of Irenaeus, Origen, Eusebius, Epipha- 
nius, Jerome, and others. In any case, however, this Hebrew work, which 
gradually grew out of the collection of sayings, must, before it was trans- 
lated into Greek, have undergone a systematic, Jinal redaction, by means of which 
it received the form which corresponds to our present Greek Matthew, for 
the latter is always attested only as a translation ; and it is precisely to this 
Jinal redaction, before the translation was made, that the recognition of the work 
by the church as apostolic must have been appended and confirmed, because 
in the rendering of the work into Greek, the Hebrew was only translated, — 
a view which underlies the testimonies and quotations of the Fathers 
throughout. The Hebrew original, which arose out of the apostle’s collec- 
tion of sayings, and which corresponds to our present Matthew, fell, after 
it was translated, into obscurity, and gradually became lost,? although it 
must have been preserved for a long time as an isolated work in Nazarene 
circles (besides and alongside of the so-called Gospel according to the 
Hebrews), where it was still found in Beroea by Jerome, who made a tran- 
script of it, and who also testifies that it existed down to his own day in the 
library of Pamphilus at Caesarea (de vir. illust. 3). —'That the translator was 
one individual, is attested by the fixed style of expression which runs 
throughout the whole (Credner, Hinleit. § 37 ; Holtzmann, p. 292 ff.) ; who 
he was, cannot be at all determined : ‘‘ quod quis postea in Graecum transtu- 
lerit, non satis certum est,” ‘‘ who afterwards may have translated it into 





1Jt is arbitrary to think only of longer, 
actual discourses (K6stlin), and to exclude 


that Adyca denotes the entire Gospel. See, 
on the other hand, also Weizsacker, p. 82. 


shorter sayings, gnomes, and the like. Both 
are to be understood. So also Photius, 
Cod. 228, p. 248, where Ta kuptaka Aoyra COr- 
responds to the ra amooroAika knpvypmata 
which follow. Without any reason, Anger, 
Ill. p. 7, employs the passage as a proof 


2 The Syriac Matthew, which Cureton has 
edited, and which he regards as a transla- 
tion of the original Hebrew writing (Lon- 
don 1858), has been derived from the Greek 
text. See Ewald, Jahrb. IX. p. 77 


12 THE GOSPEL OF MATTHEW. 


Greek is not satisfactorily known,” Jerome. The opinions, that the transla- 
tion was executed by Matthew himself (Bengel, Guericke, Schott, Olshausen, 
Thiersch), or at least with his co-operation (Guericke),—or by another apos- 
tle (Casaubon, Gerhard), perhaps James the Lord’s brother (Synopsis S. S. 
Pseudo-Athanasius), or even by John (Theophyiact, Scholia on Matthew, 
Subscriptions in the mss.), or was prepared under the eye and commission of 
the apostles (Ebrard),—or that two of the disciples of Matthew had. written 
down, the one in Aramaic, the other in Greek, the tradition preserved by 
the apostle (Orelli, Selecta Patr. Eccles. Capita, 1821, p. 10),—easily connect 
themselves with dogmatic presuppositions, but are destitute of all historical 
foundation, and must, in consequence of the testimony which Papias bears 
as to what Matthew wrote, altogether fall to the ground. — If, as the result 
of all that precedes, the share of the apostle in the work which bears his 
name must be referred back to his Hebrew owtvragéic tov Aoyiwv, and in so far 
the book as a whole cannot be called apostolic in the.narrower sense, but 
‘already a secondary narrative” (Baur), the apostolic authenticity,’ which has 
been strictly defended down to the most recent time, can remain only in a very 
relative degree. If, however, the gospel history thereby loses this direct 
guarantee, so far as in many single points it would lack the weighty author- 
ity of the apostle and eye-witness as a voucher, yet the gain is to be more 
highly estimated which it derives from being completely emancipated from 
the contradictory statements of two apostles on which apologetic harmo- 
nists, since Augustine, Osiander, Chemnitz, Gerhard, Calovius, Bengel, Storr, 
and others,* have exercised their inventive ingenuity with the Sispyhus-labour 
of a one-sided acuteness, and from seeing the decisive authority of John 
in relation to the first Gospel altogether unshackled. To this authority 
must also be subordinated the discourses of Jesus in individual parts, which, 
considering the genetic development under which our Matthew gradually 
grew up out of the collection of sayings, cannot have remained unchanged 
(especially those relating to the last things and to the last Supper). Yet 
the greater portion of them, so far as they belong to the non-Johannean 
stage of action, are independent of and unaffected by the Johannean ac- 
counts of the discourses. If, namely, as our Gospels furnish the actual 
proof of it, there was formed earliest of all a Galilean cycle of gospel history 


1 See, especially, Theile in Winer’s Xrit. 
Journ. II. p. 181 ff. 346 ff. ; Heidenreich, das. 
III. p. 129 ff. 885 ff.; Kuinoel, Fritzsche, 
Kern, Schott, Guericke ; Olshausen, Apos- 
tolica Ev. Matth. or. def., Erlangen 1835-37 ; 
Rordam, de fide patr. eccles. antiquiss. in 
dis, quae de orig. evv. can. maxime Matth. 
tradider., Hafniae 1839; Harless, Ebrard, 
Thiersch, Delitzsch, Hengstenberg, and 
others. 

2 Even the most recent, which is set forth 
inthe most consistent form with the acute- 
ness of comprehensive learning by Wiese- 
ler in his chronol. Synopse, 1843 (translated 
by Venables), and later, down to his Beitr. 
zur Wirdig. d. Fv. 1869; in the most bulky 


shape with the roughness of passionate 
feeling by Ebrard in his wissensch. Krit. d. 
evang. Gesch. ed. 3, 1868 (2d ed. translated ; 
Clark, Edinburgh). Harmonizers have 
done much harm by fostering the opinion 
that the gospel history needed their brittle 
support. The substance of this history is 
altogether independent of such help, as 
was already correctly recognized by Gries- 
bach. The discord of harmonists, however, 
with each other is only the process of the 
self-dissolution of their artificial labors, 
the result of which has been less to the ad= 
vantage of the history itself than of its 
opponents. 


INTRODUCTION. ile 


which extended itself to Judea only at the last great termination of the his- 
tory ; so it is conceivable enough, since Galilee was actually the principal 
theatre of the ministry of Jesus, that Matthew in his obvratic rév Aoyiwy 
already confined himself to this cycle, while it was reserved for John first, 
when evangelic historical composition had reached its culminating point, 
to include the whole of the Judaic teaching and acting,—nay, by supple- 
menting that older and defective range of narrative, to place it in the fore- 
ground of the history. Delitzsch, in connection with his fiction of a penta- 
teuchal construction of our Gospel (see afterwards, Section rv.), without 
any reason regards Matthew as the creator of the Galilean gospel type : he 
only connected himself with it by his collection of sayings, which an apos- 
tle could also do if he did not wish to write a history of Jesus. 


Remarx.—The Hebrew Matthew was adopted, as by the Hebrew Christians 
in general, so by the Nazarenes and Hbionites in particular, as their Gospel, and 
was overlaid (by the Ebionites, who omitted the two first chapters, still more 
than by the Nazarenes) with heretical and apocryphal additions and partial 
changes, as well by spinning out as by omitting, by which process arose the 
evayyéd.ov Ka’ ‘EGpaiouc, “ the gospel according to the Hebrews ;” see the frag- 
ments of the same collected from the Fathers in Credner’s Beitr. I. p. 380 ff.; 
by Hilgenfeld in his Zeitschrift, 1863, p. 345 ff. ; and in the N. T. extra Canon. 
recept. IV. According to Eusebius, ili. 39, Papias had already received into his 
work an apocryphal history, which was contained ! in the eiayyéduov Ka’ "Eppaiove, 
and which had been already made use of by Ignatius, ad Smyrn. 3 (see Je- 
rome, de vir. illust. 16), and by Hegesippus (see Eusebius, iv. 22, iii. 20; Pho- 
tius, Bibl. Cod. 232). This essential relationship of the evayyéAuov caf’ "EBpaiove 
—the contents of which, according to the remains that have been preserved, 
must have been extensive,’ and wrought up with skill and some degree of bold- 
ness (see Ewald, Jahrb, VI. p. 37 ff.)—to the Hebrew Gospel of Matthew, makes 
it explicable how the former might be regarded by many who did not possess 
an exact acquaintance with it, as the Hebrew Matthew itself (Jerome, contra 
Pelag. iii. 2, ‘‘ Ut plerique autumant ;” ad Matt. xii. 13, «‘ quod vocatur a plerisque 
Matthaei authenticum,” ‘“‘ which is called by many the authentic gospel of 
Matthew.”) To the number of these belonged also Epiphanius, who says (Haer. 
xxix, 9) that the Nazarenes possessed 76 kata Mar. 
(comp. Irenaeus, J/aer. iii. 11. 7) é8paicri, but who, nevertheless, does not know 
whether it also contained the genealogy. Of the Ebionites, on the other hand, 
he states (Haer, xxx. 3.13) that they did not possess the Gospel of Matthew ina 


enayyédtovy TAnpéotatov 


1The remark of Eusebius, qv 7d Kad’ 
“EBpatous evayyeAvov meptéxer, leaves it doubt- 
ful whether he intended by the remark to 
note the apocryphal character of this histo- 
ry, or at the same time to point to the 
source from which Papias had taken it. 
According to the connection, since two 
apostolic letters had just previously been 
mentioned as having been used by Papias ; 
and now, with the addition of the above 
remark, another, #.e. a non-apostolic histo- 
ry is quoted, which Papias is said to have 
narrated,—it is more probable that Eusebi- 


us wished to point to the use of the Gospel 
according to the Hebrews by Papias (in 
answer to Ewald and several others). The 
history itself (repi yuvackds eri moAAais apuap- 
Tiaws SuaBAnPeions emt Tov Kupiov, “ respecting 
a woman who had been accused of many 
sins before the Lord ’’), moreover, is not to 
be regarded as that of the adulteress in 
John. 

2 According to the stichometry of Nice- 
phorus, it contained 2200 oriyo.; the Gospel 
of Matthew, 2500. See Credner, zur Gesch. 
d. Ianon, p. 120. 


14 THE GOSPEL OF MATTHEW. 


complete form, but vevofevuévov kai nkpotnpraopévov, “adulterated and mutilated,” 
and quotes passages from the Ebionitic 'EBpuixkév. Wemust suppose that he had 
an exact acquaintance only with the Ebionite edition of the Gospel according to 
the Hebrews, probably derived from Ebionite writings. Jerome, on the other 
hand, hada minute acquaintance with the evangelium secundum Hebraeos, and, in 
opposition to the view which has recently become current, definitely distinguished 
it from the Hebrew Matthew.! Of the latter, namely, which he found in use 
among the Nazarenes at Beroea, he made a transcript (de vir. illust. 3) ; the Gospel 
according to the Hebrews, of which, consequently, there could not have been 
as yet any widely diffused and recognized translation, he translated into Greek 
and Latin (de vir. illust. 2, ad Mich. vii. 6, ad Malt. xii. 13), which of course he 
did not do in the case of the Hebrew Matthew, as that Matthew was every- 
where extant in Greek and also in Latin. Jerome consequently could not 
share the erroneous opinion of the plerique above mertioned ; and the very pre- 
carious assumption —precarious because of his well-known acquaintance with 
the Hebrew language—that he held it at a former time, but abandoned it after- 
wards (Credner, de Wette, Holtzmann, Tischendorf, and several others), or at 
least expressed himself more cautiously regarding it (Hilgenfeld), is altogether 
baseless, and is only still more condemned by Credner’s arbitrary hypothesis 
(Beitriige, I. p. 394). It is, however, also conceivable that it was precisely 
among the Nazarenes that he found the Hebrew Matthew, as they naturally 
attached great value to that Gospel, out of which their own Gospel, the 
evangelium secund. Hebraeos, had grown. Of the former (de vir. ill. 3), as well 
as of the latter (c. Pelag. iii. 2), there was a copy in the library at Caesarea. 
As Jerome almost always names only the Nazarenes as those who use the 
evangelium sec. Hebraeos, while he says nothing of any special EHbionitic Gospel ; 
nay, on Matt. xii. 13, designates the Gospel according to the Hebrews as that 
«quo utuntur Nazareni et Hbionitae,” “which the Nazarenes and Ebionites use,”’ 
he does not appear to have known any special Ebionitic edition, or to have 
paid any attention to it ; while he simply adhered to the older, more original, 
and more widely disseminated form of the work, in which it was authoritative 
among the Nazarenes, and was certainly also retained in use among the Ebio- 
nites side by side with their still more vitiated gospel writing. The supposition 
that the evangelium sec. Hebraeos arose out of a (reek original (Credner, Bleek, 
de Wette, Delitzsch, Reuss, Hilgenfeld, Holtzmann ; comp. also Sepp, d. Hebr. 
Evang. 1870), has against it the statement of the Fathers (Eusebius, iv. 22 ; 
Epiphanius, Haeres. xxx. 3. 13; and especially Jerome), who presuppose a 


1 It is objected to this (see also Anger, III. dered it not late, but in the evening.” Be- 


p. 12), that Jerome in his epistle to Hedibia 
(Opp.1. p. 826, ed. Vallarsi), on ch. xxviii. 1, 
remarks: ‘‘ Mihi videtur evangelista Mat- 
thaeus, qui evangelium Hebraico sermone 
conscripsit, non tam vespere dixisse quam 
sero, et eum, qui interpretatus est, verbi 
ambiguitate deceptum, non sero interpreta- 
tum esse, sed vespere,”’ “The Evangelist 
Matthew, who wrote his Gospel in the He- 
brew tongue, seems to me to have said not 
so much in the evening as late in the day; it 
seems also that he who interpreted it, de- 
ceived by the ambiguity of the word, ren- 


cause Jerome employs here only a videtur, 
the word is said to betray on his part a on- 
acquaintance with the original Hebrew writ- 
ing. This objection is erroneous. Jerome 
rather means that the Hebrew word em- 
ployed by Matthew is ambiguous ; that it 
may signify vespere and sero ; that Matthew 
appears to have expressed by it the latter 
conception, while the translator took it in 
the former sense. What Hebrew word 
stood in the passage Jerome does not state ; 
it may probably have been N3WN N1ID3. 


INTRODUCTION. 15 


Hebrew original ; while, further, there stands in conflict with it the old and 
widely disseminated confusion between that Gospel and the original Hebrew 
work of Matthew. The alleged wavering, moreover, between the texts of Mat- 
thew and Luke, which has been found in some fragmentary portions, is so 
unessential (see the passages in de Wette, sec. 64a), that the fluidity of oral 
tradition is fully sufficient to explainit. Just as little can that hypothesis find 
any support from the individual passages, which are still said to betray the Greek 
original (of Matthew), from which the evanyelium sec. Hebraeos arose by means 
ofan Aramaic edition. For, as regards the éyxpic, ‘‘ the oil and honey cake,”’ in 
Epiphanius, Haer. xxx. 13, see on Matt. 111.4. And when Jerome, on ch. xxvii. 
16, relates that in that Gospel the name Barabbas was explained by filius magistri 
eorum, ‘‘ the son of this master,” it has been erroneously assumed that the Greek 
accusative Bapa33av was taken as an indeclinable noun (j371)2= p27 ==) 
So Paulus, Credner, Bleek, Holtzmann. Such a degree of ignorance of Greek, 
precisely when itis said to bea translation from that language, cannot at all be 
assumed, especially as the Greek Bapa33. was written with only one p, and the 
name NANI and Bapas3d¢e was very common. ‘Filius magistri eorum’’ is rather 
to be regarded simply as an instance of forced rabbinical interpretation, where 
SAN was referred, in the improper sense of magister, to the devil; and in sup- 
port of this interpretation, an eorwm, giving a more precise definition, was, freely 
enough, subjoined.! When, further, according to Jerome on Matt. xxiii. 35, 
filius Jojadae, ‘‘the son of Joiada,’”’ stood in the Gospel according to the He- 
brews in place of viod Bapayiov, this does not necessarily presuppose the (Greek 
text, the mistake in which was corrected by the Gospel according to the He- 
brews, but the 11" 11 may just as appropriately, and quite independently of 
the Greek Matthew, have found its way in, owing to amore correct statement of 
the tradition, in room of the erroneous name already received into the original 
Hebrew text. Just as little, finally, is any importance to be attached to this, 
that, according to Jerome on Matt. vi. 11, instead of Tov éxcodcor, *‘ the coming,”’ 
there stood in the Gospel according to the Hebrews 11), since there exists 
no difference of meaning between these two words. See on Matt. /.c. None 
of these data (still less that which, according to Jerome, the Gospel ac- 
cording to the Hebrews, ch. xxv. 51, contained respecting the breaking of 
the supraliminare templi, ‘‘the lintel of the Temple ;’ and what was formerly 
adduced, still especially by Delitzsch, Entsteh. u. Anl. d. kanon. Evang. I. p. 
21 f.) is fitted to lay a foundation for the opinion that that apocryphal Gos- 
pel was derived from a Greek original, and especially from our Greek 
Matthew, or from the (alleged) Greek document which formed the foundation 
of the same, which is said to have undergone in the Gospels of the Nazarenes 
and Ebionites only other redactions, independently of the canonical one 
(Hilgenfeld, Evangel. p. 117). — The converse view, that our Greek Matthew 
proceeded from a Greek translation of the Gospel according to the Hebrews, 
which was subjected to modification of various kinds until it finally became 
fixed in its present shape in our canonical Gospel of Matthew (probably about 
the year 130 a.p.), Schwegler, Baur, renders necessary the unhistorical supposi- 


1 Quite in the same way has even Theo- name as “filius patris, h. e. diadoli,”’ was, 
phylact himself explained the name by tov on the whole, very common, See Jerome 
vidy Tod matpds avt@v, Tov SiaBoAov. See on Ps. eviii., Opp. vii. 2, p. 206. 
on ch. xxvii. 16. The interpretation of the 


16 THE GOSPEL OF MATTHEW. 


tion, which especially contravenes the testimony of Jerome, that the Hebrew 
writing of Matthew was identical with the Gospel according to the Hebrews ; 
leaves the old and universal canonical recognition of our Matthew, in view of 
the rejection by the church of the Gospel according to the Hebrews, unex- 
plained ; overlooks, further, that the assumed transformations which our 
canonical Matthew underwent prior to its being finally fixed, must—since, 
according to the unanimous testimony of the church, it is a translation—have 
related not to the Greek, but only to the Hebrew work ; and it must, finally, 
refer the relative quotations of Justin (and of the Clementines, see Uhlhorn, 
Homil. u. recog. d. Clemens, p. 119 ff.) to the Gospel according to the Hebrews, 
or assume as a source the Gospel of Peter and other unknown apocrypha 
(Schliemann, Schwegler, Baur, Zeller, Hilgenfeld, after Credner’s example), 
although it is precisely our Matthew and Luke which are most largely and 
unmistakably employed by Justin in his quotations from the drouvyyovetpat 

TOV aroo76/uy, ‘memoirs of the Apostles,’ although freely and from memory, 
and under the influence of the oral tradition which had become current, and 
which stood at his command (Semisch, d. Apost. Denkwiirdigk. Justin s, 1848 [Eng. 
transl. Messrs. Clark’s Cab. Libr.]; Delitzsch, Entsteh. u. Anl. d. kanon. Evang. 
I. p. 26 ff.; Ritschl in the theolog. Jahrb. 1851, p. 482 ff.). See, generally, on the 
priority of the Gospel of Matthew to that of the Gospel according to the 
‘Hebrews, which is most decidedly and persistently denied by Hilgenfeld ; 
Kostlin, p. 118 ff. ; Bleek; Beitr. p. 60 ff., Hinl. p. 104 ff. ; Frank in the Stud. 
u. Kritilc. 1848, p. 369 ff. Ewald, Jahrb. VI. p. 36 ff. ; Keim, Gesch. Jesu, I. 29 
ff. ; Grau, Entwickelungsgesch. d. N. T. I. p. 265 ff. ; Volkmar, and others. 


SEC. III.—READERS, AND OBJECT OF THE GOSPEL—TIME 
OF TTS. COMPOSIRON: 


Not merely was the collection of discourses composed by Matthew him- 
self intended for the Jewish Christians of Palestine, but the Hebrew Gospel 
also, which gradually grew out of that collection, as already appears from 
the language of the work itself, and as is confirmed by the testimonies of 
the Fathers (Irenaeus, Haer. iii. 1 ; Origen in Eusebius, vi. 25 ; Eusebius, 
Jerome, and others). Hence the frequent quotations from the O. T. to 
prove that the history of Jesus is the fulfilment of Messianic prophecy,— 
quotations, amongst which are to be classed even such as, without some ex- 
planatory addition, were intelligible only to those who were acquainted with 
the Hebrew language (i. 22) and the Hebrew prophetic manner of expres- 
sion (ii. 23) ; and hence, also, as a rule, all in the Gospel is presupposed as 
known which, in reference to manners and customs, to religious and civil, 
to geographical and topographical relations, could not but be known to res- 
idents in Palestine as such ; while, on the contrary, by the other evangelists 
(comp. Mark vii. 2-4 with Matt. xv. 2), such remarks, explanations, etc. as 
were unnecessary for the inhabitant of Palestine, are frequently added in 
consideration of readers living out of that country. That the unknown 
translator, however, had also in view Jewish Christians owt of Palestine, is 
clear from the very fact of his undertaking a translation. It was in refer- 
ence to such readers that some interpretations of specially noteworthy names 


INTRODUCTION. ii 


G. 28, xxvii. 38), and the translation of the exclamation on the cross in 
xxvii. 46, were added by the translator, to whose account, however, prag- 
matical observations such as those in ch. xxii. 23, xxviii. 8, 15, are not to 
be placed. 

The object which was to be attained, both by Matthew’s collection of dis- 
courses as well as by the Gospel, could be no other than to demonstrate Jesus 
to be the Messiah, which demonstration is carried out in the Gospel by means 
of the history and teaching of Jesus (in the collection of discourses by 
means of His teaching) in such a way that Jesus is set forth as He who was 
promised in the O. T. Credner, Hinl. I. p. 60 ; Ewald, Jahrb. II. p. 211. 
We must regard, however, as entirely alien from this view,’ the premature 
thought of a Jewish Christian (Petrine) party writing (so the anonymous 
work, Die Evangelien, ihre Geschichte, ihre Verfasser, Leipzig, 1845), with 
which the universalism which pervades the Gospel from iii. 9 to xxviii. 19 
is in decided conflict. The chronological and even historical exactness, 
which could be in harmony only with a later period (Luke i. 3), retired into 
the background before this didactic purpose, and the tradition which dom- 
inates the Gospel found therein that quite unlimited room to play which was 
allowed it by the belief of the community, while it was not lessened on ac- 
count of its wanting the testimony of an eye-witness, owing to its redactor 
not being an apostle. Considering the Palestinian destination of the work, 
and the contents assigned it by the collection of the discourses, and by the 
history itself and its tradition, it was natural and necessary that it should 
set forth much that was in antithesis to an unbelieving Judaism and its degen- 
erate leaders. We are not, however, to assume a special tendential character 
referring to that (KGéstlin), or the prosecution of an anti-Hbonitic aim (Grau), 
as that antithesis has its basis in the position of Christ Himself and of His 
historical work ; while upon a Gospel intended for Palestinian Jewish 
Christians it could not but impress itself spontaneously, without any special 
purpose, more than on other Gospels.*—The principal sections of the Gospel 


1 According to Hilgenfeld, Hvangelien, 
p. 106 ff. (see also Zeitschr. f. wiss. Theol. 


mining elements, and transposed in part to 
places where they do notnowstand. With 


1862, p. 33 ff., 1865, p. 43 ff., 1866, p. 136 
ff., and elsewhere), our Gospel is the pro- 
duct of ¢wo opposed factors. It originated 
in an apostolic fundamental document, 
which was composed from the particularis- 
tic standpoint of strict and close Judaism; 
the later canonical working up of which, 
however, was effected soon after the de- 
struction of Jerusalem, from the point of 
view that the Christianity which had been 
disdainfully rejected by the Jews had a 
universalistic destination for the heathen 
world. According to this theory, the in- 
congruous portions are, with great arbi- 
trariness, assigned by Hilgenfeld—although 
they are irreconcilable even with the 
scantiest systematic plan of a tendential 
redaction—to the one or the other of the 
factors which are supposed as the deter- 


much greater caution Baur recognizes the 
impartiality of the Gospel; declares it, 
however, to be at least not altogether free 
from a particular interest, and from cer- 
tain tendential leanings, and regards it, be- 
sides, as the original and most credible 
Gospel, although he holds it to have grown 
up out of the Gospel according to the He- 
brews by a process of lengthened develop- 
ment. See,in answer to Hilgenfeld, Holtz- 
mann, p. 378 ff. ; Keim, Geschichil. Christ. p. 
54 ff. The latter, however, while laying on 
the whole decided emphasis on the unity of 
the Gospel, admits that additions of very 
varying value were made by the individual 
who worked up the whole (Gesch. Jesu, I. p. 
68 ff.). 

2 When the principal source of the dis- 
courses in Matthew, the collection of say- 


18 THE GOSPEL OF MATTHEW. 


are as follow : (1) History of the birth and childhood, ch. i., ii. ; (2) Prepa- 
rations for His appearance as Messiah, ch. ili.-iv. 11 ; (3) Messianic ministry 
in Galilee, until His departure from the theatre of His work up to that 
time, xix. 1; (4) Setting out for Judea, and completion of His Messianic 
ministry and destiny, ch. xix.-xxvili. 20. Plans of a more complicated char- 
acter (see in Luthardt, /. c. p. 14 ff.) are the outcome of subjective presup- 
positions. 

As regards the time of composition, the tradition of the church assigns to 
the Gospel of Matthew the jirst place amongst the canonical Gospels (Origen 
in Eusebius, vi. 25 ; Epiphanius, Haer. li. 4; Jerome, de vir. ill. 3). Eu- 
sebius states more precisely (iii. 24) that Matthew wrote when he wished to 
take his departure from Palestine ; Irenaeus, however, iii. 1, 2 (comp. 
Eusebius, v. 8), while Peter and Paul were preaching at Rome. Of these 
two notices, the first is very indefinite ; but between the two there certainly 
lics a long period of time, especially since, at the dates when Paul made his 
first apostolic journeys to Jerusalem (Gal. i. and ii.), there is at least no 
longer any express trace of Matthew’s residence in that city. This very 
varying tradition of the time of composition is, however, conceivable with- 
out any difficulty from this consideration, that Matthew’s collection of sayings 
must in reality have been composed at a far earlier date than the Gospel 
which bears his name. The time when the one originated was easily trans- 
ferred to the other, as at a later date, when the jirst was no longer extant, the 
two writings were not, in general, separately distinguished. 
however, could be more natural than that Matthew, when he wished to fol- 
low his vocation amongst strangers, should present his Palestinian hearers 


Nothing, 


with a well-arranged collection of the Lord’s sayings, which might remain 
with them as a legacy in place of his oral preaching. 
then gradually grew out of this collection of sayings, might have been in 
constant process of formation down to the time indicated by Irenaeus (from 
60-70), and then have received its last redaction, after which also the trans- 
lation soon followed, consequently shortly defore the destruction of Jerusa- 
Jem. For as the Hebrew work is in any case to be placed before the de- 
struction of Jerusalem, so also is the Greek translation ; because in xxiv. 
29 ff. the Parousia is so definitely predicted as commencing immediately 
after the desolation of Palestine (comp. xvi. 28, xxiv. 34), that all attempts 
to evade this conclusion remain ineffectual. On the other hand, we are not 
to infer from xxiii, 35, xxiv. 15 (Hug, Credner), that at the time when the 
last chapters were composed the Romans had already taken possession of 
Galilee, and were upon the point of conquering Judea.*—Any more precise 


The Gospel, which 


but with Him the two come into view al- 
ways according to the relations of the mo- 
ment,—the latter most decidedly at His de- 
parture in xxviii. 19. : 


ings, arose, the sharp party severance of 
Judaism from Paulinism still belonged to 
the future. Comp. Holtzmann, p. 377 ff. 
By introducing in this way these party 


divisions into our Gospel, we commit a 
great Ucrepov mpotov. In Jesus Himself, the 
consciousness that he was destined for 
the Jews, and also that he was destined for 
all nations, lay side by side with each other ; 


1 With regard to xxii. 35, see the com- 
mentary. The parenthesis, moreover, in 
Xxiv. 15, 0 dvay.wécKwv voeitw, only draws 


- attention sharply to the remarkable pre- 


diction, but contains nothing from which 


INTRODUCTION. 19 


determination of the locality where it was composed is nowhere pointed to, 
not even in xix. 1 (see on the passage), where Késtlin finds the residence of 
the writer presupposed as being in the country to the east of the Jordan, to 
which view Holtzmann also is inclined (p. 414 f.). 


Remarx.—The above notice of time given by Eusebius is more precisely de- 
termined : by Eusebius of Caesarea, in the Chronicon, as the year 41 ; by Cosmas 
Indicopleustes, as in the time of the stoning of Stephen ; by Theophylact and 
Euth. Zigabenus, as eight years after the ascension ; by the Alexandrine Chron- 
icon and Nicephorus, as fifteen years after the ascension. All these are the out- 
come of a desire to place the Gospel as early as possible. In modern times, 
the determination of the time within the 60 years has been for the most part 
rightly adhered to (Keim, 66). Still, in so doing, any alleged use of the Apoc- 
alypse (Hitzig, Volkmar) is to be left out of consideration. 


SEC. IV.—RELATIONSHIP OF THE FIRST THREE GOSPELS.’ 


The strange mixture of agreement and divergence in the Synoptics 
when compared with each other, in which there appears an obvious 
communion, not merely as to the matter and extent and course of the 
history, but also as to the words and transactions, extending even to the 
most accidental minutiae and to the most peculiar expressions,—partly, 
again, a very varying peculiarity in the manner of receiving and dealing 
with the subject-matter, as well as in the selection of the expressions and 
links of connection (see the more minute demonstration of this relation in 
de Wette, Hinl. secs. 79, 80 ; Credner, sec. 67 ; Wilke, neutestament. Rhet- 
orik, p. 435 ff. ; Holtzmann, p. 10 ff.), has, since the mechanical strictness 
of the older theory of inspiration had to yield its place to the claims of sci- 
entific investigation, called forth very different attempts at explanation. 
Hither all the three Gospels have been derived from a common source, 07 
critics have contented themselves with the old hypothesis (see already Au- 
gustine, de consensu Hvang. 1. 4), that one evangelist made use of the other, 
—the later of the earlier one or more, where, however, ancient evangelical 
writings and the oral traditions of the apostolic age have been called in, 
and could not fail to be so, by way of aid. 


the BdedAvyna 7. épnuwcews should announce redaction; the fundamental document, 


itself as already begun. Baur, p. 605, de- 
duces from the assumption that the Béde- 
AvyHa THs Epnuwo. in xxiv. 15 is the pillar of 
Jupiter which Hadrian caused to be erect- 
ed upon the site of the ruined temple, that 
the Gospel falls within the years 130-140. 
But see remark 3, after chap. xiv. Ko6stlin, 
rightly understanding the destruction in 
the year 70, yet deals much too freely with 
the ev@éws in xxiv. 29, so as to extend it to 
a period of about 10 years, and accordingly 
places the composition of the Gospel after 
the destruction of Jerusalem, about 70-80, 
when it originated amid the most lively ex- 
‘pectation of the Parousia. Within the 
same time Hilgenfeld also places the final 


however, as early as 50-60. 

10n the history of the investigations 
bearing upon this subject, see Weiss in the 
Stud. u. Krit. 1861, p. 678 ff. ; Hilgenfeld in 
his Zeitschrift, 1861, p. 1 ff. 187 f., 1862, p. 1 
ff., 1865, p. 171 ff., and in his work, der Jra- 
non u. ad. Kritik d. N. T1863; Holtzmann, 
die synopt. Hvangelien, p. 15 ff. ; Weizsiaicker, 
p. 10 ff. ; Keim, Geschichte Jesu, I. p. 99 ff. : 
Volkmar, Relig. Jesu, p. 375 ff., and Urspr. 
der Evangelien, 1866, also die Evangelien oder 
Markus u. d. Synopsis, etc., 1870; Scholten, 
d. dlteste Evang., German transl. by Rede- 
penning, 1869; Hilgenfeld in his Zeitschrift. 
1870, 2 and 4, 


20 THE GOSPEL OF MATTHEW. 


13 


A. After Clericus (Hist. eccl. IT. prim. saec., Amstelodami 1716, p. 429) 
had already directed attention, with a view to the explanation of the affinity 
in question, to ancient gospel writings composed by eye- and ear-witnesses, 
—while, at a later date, Semler in his translation of Townson’s Discourses 
on the Four Gospels, Halle 1783, I. pp. 221, 290, had assumed one or more 
original Syro-Chaldaic writings, as Lessing also had (theol. Nachl. 1785, p. 
45 ff.) already regarded the Gospel according to the Hebrews as the com- 
mon source, in which he was followed by Niemeyer (Conjecturae ad illustr. 
plurimor. N. T. seriptor. silentium de primord. vitae J. Ch., Hal. 1790), 
C. F. Weber (Untersuch. ib. d. Ev. d. Hebr. 1806), Paulus (dntroductio in 
NV. T. capita selectiora, Jenae 1799), Thiess, (Kommentar, I. p. 18 f.), 
Schneckenburger, and several others,—it was, first, pupils from the school 
of Eichhorn (Halfeld and Russwurm in the Gdéttinger Preisschriften, 1793, 
and see the work of the latter on the origin of the first three Gospels, Rat- 
zeb. 1797), and, soon after, Eichhorn himself (in d. Bibl. d. bibl. Literatur, 
1794, p. 759, ff.), who came forward with the hypothesis, which has become 
famous, of an original written Gospel, which, with manifold modifications, 
was adopted by Marsh (Remarks and Additions to Michaelis, Hinl. aus dem 
Engl. von Rosenmiller, Gbtt. I. 1795, II. 1803), Ziegler (in Gabler’s newest. 
theol. Journ. IV. p. 417), Hiinlein, Herder (partly), Gratz (see afterwards), 
Bertholdt, Kuinoel, and several others. 

Aceording to Eichhorn, an original Syro-Chaldaic Gospel, composed 
about the time of the stoning of Stephen, contained the sections common 
to all the three evangelists ; but in such a way that four, likewise Aramaic, 
editions of the same served as a foundation for the Synoptics,—namely, 
edition A to Matthew ; edition B to Luke ; edition C, composed of A and 
B, to Mark ; and besides these, still an edition D to Matthew and Luke 
alike. The less, however, that in this way the verbal agreement was ex- 
plained, and that too of the Greek Gospel, consisting, as it does so often, 
of casual and unique expressions, the less could more complicated attempts 
at explanation fail to be made. Herbert Marsh, J.c. II. p. 284 ff., set up 
the following genealogy : (1) &, an original Hebrew Gospel ; (2) x, a Greek 
version of the same ; (8) 8 +a+ A, atranscript of the original Hebrew 
Gospel, with smaller and larger additions ; (4) 8 + 3+ B, another trans- 
cript of the same, with other smaller and larger additions ; (5) s + y+T, 
a third transcript, again with other additions ; (6) 3, a Hebrew gnomology 
in various editions. The Hebrew Matthew, according to this theory, origi- 
nated by means of 8+31+a+A+y+4+T; the Gospel of Luke, by means of 
%¥+24+84+B+y+04+ 8; the Gospel of Mark, by means of 8 +a+A 
+8+B+y; the Greek Matthew, however, was atranslation of the Hebrew 
Matthew, with the addition of y, and of the Gospels of Luke and Mark. 

In order to remove the objections which were raised against him, Eich- 
horn (Hinl. I. p. 353 ff.) expanded his view in the following way :—(1) An 
original Hebrew Gospel ; (2) a Greek version of this ; (3) a peculiar recen- 
sion of number 1 ; (4) a Greek version of number 8, with the use of number 


INTRODUCTION. 21 


2; (5) another recension of number 1 ; (6) a third recension, derived from 
numbers 3 and 5 ; (7) a fourth recension from number 1, with larger addi- 
tions ; (8) Greek version of number 7, with the use of number 2 ; (9) a /Ze- 
brew Matthew, derived from numbers 3 and 7; (10) a Greek Matthew, from 
number 9, with the assistance of numbers 4 and 8 ; (11) Mark, derived 
from number 6, with the use of numbers 4 and 5 ; (12) Zuke, from numbers 
5 and 8. The hypothesis of an original written gospel received a some- 
what more simple shape from Gritz (newer Versuch der Entstehung der drei 
ersten Evang. zu erkléren. Tiib. 1812) as follows :—(1) An original Hebrew 
Gospel ; (2) an original Greek Gospel, derived from former, with many ad- 
ditions ; (8) shorter, evangelic documents ; (4) Mark and Luke arose out of 
number 2, with the help of number 3 ; (5) a Hebrew Matthew, derived from 
number 1, with additions, partly its own, partly borrowed from a document 
which here and there agreed with the gnomology employed by Luke ; (6) a 
Greek version of the Hebrew Matthew, in making which the Gospel of Mark 
was consulted, and additions derived from it ; (7) interpolations from the 
Gospels of Matthew and Luke, by means of mutual transpositions of many 
sections from the one to the other. 

Considering the entire want of any historical basis for the existence of an 
original written Gospel of the kind in question, although it could not but 
have been regarded as of very high authority ; considering the meagre and 
defective materials of which it must needs have been composed ; consider- 
ing the contradictions which the testimonies of Luke in his preface, and of 
the fragment of Papias, carry in themselves to an original written Gospel ; 
considering the artificial nature of the structure which is raised up upon a 
presupposed basis by the arbitrary calling in of materials at will ; consider- 
ing the accumulated and strangely trivial cultivation of authorship, which 
is presupposed, in opposition to the spirit, the wants, and the hope of 
the apostolic age ; considering the dead mechanical way especially in which 
the evangelists would have gone to work, altogether without that indepen- 
dent idiosynerasy which, in the case of apostles and apostolic men, cannot, 
even in respect to their written activity in the service of the church, be con- 
ceived of as wanting without doing injury to the historical character and 
spirit of the original Christian age ; considering the high authority, finally, 
which the Synoptics have attained, but which they could scarcely have 
reached by a style of writing history so spiritless, so laboriously fettered, 
and of so compilatory a character :—it can only be regarded as an advance 
and a gain, that these artificial hypotheses have again disappeared, and are 
worthy of note only as evidences of an inventive conjectural criticism, 
which, when we consider the theological character of its time, cannot as- 
tonish us even in respect of the approval which it received. A beneficial 
recoil from this approval was brought about first by Hug (Hin/. 1808, 4te Aufl. 
1847), who simply went back to the critical use to which Mark subjected 
Matthew, and Luke both his predecessors, consequently in harmony with 
the order of succession in the Canon,—a view which, at the present day, is 
held most decidedly by Hilgenfeld. : 

The assumption also of many hinds of original gospel writings and essays as 





ra) 


2 THE GOSPEL OF MATTHEW. 


sources of the Synoptics (after Clericus, 7. e., Semler, Michaelis, Koppe, and 
others ; first, in reference to the third Gospel, by Schleiermacher, i. d. 
Schriften des Luk. Berlin 1817 [Eng. transl. by late Bishop of St. David’s]), 
is by no means sufficient to solve the riddle, especially if we keep in view 
the harmony of the three in respect of their plan and design as a whole ; for 
if we were to explain all the peculiarities of the relation in this way, we 
would be entangled in a mosaic work of multitudinous combinations and 
separations, in which there would again fall to the share of the evangelists 
themselves nothing but a curiously mechanical skill as their undeserved fate. 


B. Far greater reputation, nay, even permanent approval down to the 
most recent time (Guericke, Ebrard, Thiersch, and many others ; also 
Schleiermacher, Hin/., ed. Wolde, 1845), has been attained by the hypothe- 
sis of an original oral Gospel, which, after Eckermann (theol. Beitr. V. 2, 
p. 148), Herder (Regel d. Zusammenstimm, unserer Evangel. in: von Gottes 
Sohn, der Welt Heiland, 1797), has found its most thoroughgoing represen- 
tative’ in Gieseler’s celebrated Versuch iiber die Entstehung und friihesten 
Schicksale der schriftl. Evang., Leipzig 1818. According to this hypothesis, 
which may be compared with that of Wolf regarding the origin of Homer, 
the doctrines, acts, and destinies of Christ were, among the apostles and 
first Christians at Jerusalem, the oft-repeated subject of their conversation, 
in a greater or less degree, always in proportion as they appeared more or 
less as witnesses for the Messiahship. The memory of one disciple thus 
aided that of another in the way of correction and arrangement, so that the 
facts and discourses were apprehended ina firm living recollection. By 
this process, however,—through which men who were destined to be fel- 
low-laborers with the apostles were prepared for their vocation, instruction 
being imparted by one apostle in the presence of the others,—these azouvy- 
poveimara attained a continuous historical shape ; and in order to prevent 
any disfiguration, the expression also, and therewith, at the same time, the 
thought, became fixed,? which might take place all the more easily, consid- 
ering that the state of culture among the first narrators was pretty much 
the same. There was thus formed a standing, as it were stereotype, narra- 
tive, which comprised the sections common to the three Synoptics. As, 
however, some portions of the history formed more the topic of conversa- 
tion and of narration to the converts, and others less, always according to 
their greater or less importance, —which determined, also, a more or less 
free form of address ; and as, in addition, special recollections of the apos- 
tles flowed into their addresses,—there are explained in this way the diver- 


1 See, besides, Sartorius, drei Abh. rid. 
wichtig. Gegenst. d. exeg. u. system. Theol. 
1820; Rettig, Hphemerid. exeg. Theol. I., 
Giessen 1824; Schulz in the Stud. u. Kritik. 
1829; Schwarz, diber das Verwandtschafts- 
verhilin. d Evangelien, 1844. In reference to 
Mark, Knobel, de ev. Marci orig. 1831. Here 
belongs also Kalchreuter in the Jahrb. f. 
deutsche Theol. 1861, p. 507 ff., who refers the 
harmony, without any written medium, to 


the original Gospel of Christian recollection. 

2 Compare the Rabbinical rule in Schabd. 
f. 15.1: “Verba praeceptoris sine ulla im- 
mutatione, ut prolata ab illo fuerant, erant 
recitanda, ne diversa illi affingeretur sen- 
tentia,”’ ‘the words of the teacher, without 
any change, as they have been uttered by 
him, were to be repeated, lest a contradic- 
tory sense should be affixed to them.”’ See, 
generally, Gieseler, p. 105 ff. 


INTRODUCTION. 23 


gencies which are found in some parts of the historical narrative. This 
oral narrative was impressed upon the memory of those who were intended 
for the vocation of teaching by frequent repetition. The language of this 
original type of oral Gospel, the Aramaic, was with all care translated into 
Greek, when Hellenists in increasing numbers were received into the com- 
munity. Finally, the word became fettered by the letter, whereby, the 
individual author, in selecting and setting forth his material, fell in with 
the wants of his readers ; so that Matthew handed on a purely Palestinian ; 
Mark, a Palestinian Gospel, modified abroad, and for strangers out of Pal- 
estine ; Luke, a Pauline Gospel. 

The want, however, of all historical testimony for a standing apostolic 
tradition of that kind ; the mechanical method, opposed to the living spirit 
of the apostolic age and activity, which is presupposed in order to its orig- 
ination and establishment ; the mechanical literary manner in which the 
evangelists are said to have continued the oral account which pre-existed ; 
the incompleteness and limitation, beyond which a narrative of that kind 
could not have risen ; the want of agreement precisely in the all-important 
histories of the passion and resurrection of Christ ; the circumstance that, 
as already appears from the Acts of the Apostles and the New Testament 
Epistles, the preachers of the apostolic age (see on Acts xxi. 8) had to deal 
chiefly with the whole redemptive work of Christ, and that therefore they, 
by preference, announced His incarnation, His manifestation and ministry, 
in brief, condensed summary (see, e.g., Acts x. 87-42), His doctrine as a 
fact viewed as a whole, the testimony to His miracles, His sacrificial death, 
His resurrection, glorification, and second advent, in doing which they pos- 
sessed, in their own recollection, and relatively in the living tradition, mate- 
rial and warrant enough for the preaching also of the individual doctrines, 
discourses, acts, and destinies of the Lord, which they certainly had like- 
wise to do in the discharge of this great chief vocation of theirs (comp. 1 
Cor. xi. 23, ch. xv. 1 ff. ; see also what Papias says of Mark, as the hearer 
of Peter, in Eusebius, iii. 39), and did not need a previous stereotype didac- 
tic preparation ; the want of,every trace of such a standing type in the New 
Testament Epistles ; finally,'the testimonies of Luke and Papias, which are 
exactly opposed to an original Gospel tradition in the sense asswmed ; the 
complete breaking through of such already by Luke, and its annulling by 
John :—all these are just so many reasons why any explanation of the sy- 
noptic Gospels upon that hypothesis of an original oral Gospel (without pre- 
judice, however, to the necessary and great influence of oral tradition in 
general) must be renounced, even apart from this, that the formation of such 
an original Gospel, by means of the designed co-operation of the apostles, 
would be simply irreconcilable with the contradictions which are presented 
by the Gospel of John. 


Il. 


The view, according to which one evangelist made use of the other,—where 
however, the gospel tradition, as it existed in a living form long before it 
was recorded in writing (Luke i. 2), as well as old written documents, com- 


24 THE GOSPEL OF MATTHEW. 


posed before our Gospels (Luke, /.¢.), come also essentially into considera- 
tion, —is the only one which is fitted to enable us to conceive of the synop- 
tic relationship in a natural manner, and in agreement with the history. 

The order in which the three originated has, according to this view, been 
very variously determined. Namely, (1.) according to the order of the 
canon, Matthew wrote first, Mark made use of him, and Luke of both. So 
Grotius, Mill, Wetstein, Bengel, Townson (Abhandlungen iiber d. vier Evan- 
gel., aus dem Engl. von Semler, Leipzig 1783, I. p. 275, IL. p. 1 ff.), Seiler 
(de temp. et ord., quo tria ev. pr. can. scripta sunt, Erlangen 1805, 1806), 
Hug, Credner,’ Hengstenberg, Grau, and several others ; of the Tiibingen 
school, Hilgenfeld (d. Markus-Evangel., Lypz. 1850, krit. Untersuch. ib. d. 
Evangel. Justin's, etc., Halle 1850, also in the theolog. Jahrb. 1852, p. 102 ff., 
158 ff., 1857, p. 381 ff., 408 ff., and die Hvangelien nach ihrer Entstehung, 
and 1854, d. Urehristenthum, 1855, and in his wiss. Zeitschrift, 1859, 1861, 
1862, 1863, 1865, 1867, 1870 ; also in his Kanon u. Kritik. d. N. T. 1868), 
who refers our canonical Matthew to an apostolic documentary work—of a 
strictly Judeo-Christian character-—between the years 60 and 70, which, 
however, received, immediately after the destruction of Jerusalem, a freer 
treatment, and in this way attained its present shape, as he also places, as 
an intermediate link, between Matthew and Mark, not merely the Petrine- 
Roman tradition, but also a Petrine edition of Matthew, a Gospel of Peter, 
which was also made use of by the author of our Mark, while he makes the 
Gospel of Luke to arise out of a Pauline working up of the two first Gos- 
pels, and other sources about 100 years after Christ. Augustine’s opinion 
(de consen. ev. 1, 4) already was : ‘‘ Marcus Matthaewm subsequutus tanquam 
pedissequus et breviator ejus videtur,” ‘* Mark, having come next to Matthew, 
seems to be his follower and abbreviator,” which Koppe (Marcus non epito- 
mator Matthaei, 1782) rightly controverts, as is done afterwards also by Her- 
der and others, proceeding from other principles ; and especially by those who 
assign to Mark the priority among the three (see subsequently). (2.) Mat- 
thew, Luke, Mark, the so-called hypothesis of Griesbach. So Owen, Obser- 
vations on the Four Gospels, London 1764 ; Stroth in Eichhorn’s Repert. IX. p. 
144 ; and especially Griesbach, Commentat. qua Marci ev. totum e Matthaei 
et Lucae commentariis decerpt. esse monstratur, Jen. 1789, 1790 (also in his 
Opuse., ed. Gabler, II. p. 385 ff.) ; Ammon, de Luca emendatore Matthaei, 


1 According to Credner, Hin/eit., it was 
not long after the destruction of Jerusalem, 


dition, the basis of a written redaction of 
the gospel history, and there thus originated 


“on the border of the transition period 
from historical tradition to legend,” that 
attempts at a written record of the gospel 
history were first made. There were found 
in existence about that time both the He- 
brew collection of sayings by the Apostle 
Matthew,and also those observations which 
Mark, the companion of Peter, had set 
down accurately, indeed, but without ref- 
erence to arrangement, probably after the 
apostle’s death. A Palestinian writer made 
that work of Matthew, with the aid of 
Mark’s memoranda, as well as of oral tra- 


‘*our first canonical Gospel, rightly entitled 
kata Mat@acov.” Another took those 
memoranda of Mark as the foundation of 
his work, and, arranging and supplement- 
ing, worked up the history in agreement 
with them, and thus arose the evayyed. 
kata Mapxov. Luke, along with oral tra- 
dition, already made use of dimyyoes of the 
gospel history, and amongst these probably 
of our Matthew and Mark, but more cer- 
tainly of the Adyra, which Matthew himself 
had written, and of the observations which 
Mark himself had recorded. 


INTRODUCTION. 25 


Erl. 1805 ; Saunier, wb. d. Quellen des Ev. Mark., Berlin 1825; Theile, de 
trium prior. ev. necessitud., Leipzig 1825, and in Winer’s and Engelhardt’s 
krit. Journ. V. 4, p. 400 f., Sieffert, Fritzsche, Neudecker, Kern, de Wette, 
Gfroérer, heil. Sage, p. 212 ff., Strauss, Schwarz, newe Untersuch. ib. d. Ver- 
wandtschaftsverhdltniss d. synop. Hvang., Tiibingen 1844, p. 277 ff., Bleek, 
Schwegler in the theolog. Jahrb. 1843, p. 203 ff., and in the nachapost. Zeit- 
alter, I. p. 457 ff., Baur, p. 548 ff., and d. Markus-Evangel., Tiib. 1851, also 
in the theolog. Jahrb. 1858, p. 54 ff.; and frequently Strauss, Zeller, Délling, 
Késtlin,’ Kahnis, Keim. Among these defenders of the priority of Mat- 
thew, Delitzsch, in a manner which is peculiar to himself, believes that he 
has demonstrated the same (see his newe Unters. iib. Entstehung und Anlage 
d. kanon. Evangelien, I. p. 59), namely, by means of a presumed pentateuchic 
plan of the Gospel in harmony with the setting forth of Christianity as a 
new, not less divine véuoc, raised above that of Moses. This discovery, 
however, is nothing else than a playing of the Rabbinical mind with a fan- 
ciful typology (see especially Lticke : de eo, quod nimium artis acuminisque 
est in ea, quae nunc praecipue factitatur sacrae scripturae . . . interpreta- 
tione, Gétt. 1853 ; Baur in the theolog. Jahrb. 1854, p. 235 ff.; Weiss in the 
deutsch. Zeitschr. Beibl. 1854, 3), for the sake of laying a foundation for the 
confident assertion of the author, that to think of the priority of Mark will 
be henceforth quite impossible,—a remark which has been already abun- 
dantly refuted by experience. 

(8.) Mark, Matthew, Luke. So Storr, wb. d. Zweck d. evang. Gesch. u. d. 
Briefe des Johannes, p. 274 ff., and de fontibus evang. Matt. et Lucae, Tiib. 
1794 (also in Velthusen, Commentatt. III. p. 140 ff.) ; from Mark, namely, 
the Hebrew Matthew, and partly, also, Luke were derived, and that the 
Greek translator of Matthew then made use of Mark and Luke, 

The order, Mark, Matthew, Luke,’ is maintained also by Lachmann in the 





1 According to Koéstlin, our JMaithew, decennium of the second century. Gener- 


which first arose between the years 70-80, 
Was composed with the use of the Apostle 
Matthew’s collection of discourses, as well 
as of the Petrine Gospel, which is intended 
in Papias’ testimony regarding Mark, and 
of other sources, and experienced its last 
eatholic redaction about the years 90-100. 
Luke made use of Matthew, although notas 
a principal source, but chiefly of South-Pal- 
estinian, Judeo-Christian sources, and wrote 
still in the first century, in Asia Minor, 
where the Gospel long circulated as a pri- 
vate writing, until it became known in 
Rome also, where ecclesiastical use was 
not made of it probably till after the middle 
of the second century. Our Mark, finally, 
an epitomized, neutral, and irenie work, is 
dependent upon Matthew and Luke, as 
well as on the older written source of Mark, 
is a product of the idea of catholicity upon 
an originally Judeo-Christian basis, and 
originated in the Roman Church in the first 


ally the consideration of the Gospels as 
tendential writings, in which the develop- 
ment of early Christianity into the Old 
Catholic Church is said to disclose itself, is 
peculiar to the school of Baur, where, how- 
ever, Hilgenfeld claims for his method of 
apprehending the subject the character of 
the literary-historical, a name which does 
not change the nature of the tendential 
view. 

2 Against this reputed ‘‘pet child of the 
most recent criticism,’ Keim, in particular 
(Inaugural Address ad. menschl. Entwick. J. 
Ch., Ziirich 1861, and in his Gesch. Jesu), has 
come forward in support of Matthew, and 
to the prejudice of John. Hilgenfeld con- 
tinues most zealously to contend against 
the priority of Mark ; Kahnis, Dogmaiik, I. 
p. 409, classes the same among the ‘‘ hard- 
iest aberrations of modern criticism.”’—Klos- 
termann (d. Markus-Hvang. nach s. Quellen- 
werthe, 1867) rejects the hypothesis of an 


26 THE GOSPEL OF MATTHEW. 


Stud. u. Kritik. 1835, p. 570 ff. ; Weisse, evang. Gesch. 1838, and Hvange- 
lienfr. 1856, Ewald, Reuss, Thiersch ; Tobler, Hvangelienfr. 1858 ; Ritschl 
in the theolog. Jahrb. 1851, p. 480 ff. ; Plitt, de compos. evang. synopt. 1860 ; 
Weiss in the Stud. u. Kritik. 1861, p. 29 ff., 646 ff., and in the Jahrb. f. D. 
Theolog. 1864, p. 49 ff., 1865, p. 319 ff. ; compare his Markus- Evangel. 1871 ; 
Eichthal, les évangiles, 1863 ;, Schenkel ; Wittichen in the Jahrb. f. D. 
Th. 1862, p. 314 ff., 1866, p. 427 ff. ; Holtzmann, d. synopt. Hvangelien, 
1863 ; Weizsiicker, who assumes a written source common to the three, the 
extent and arrangement of which may be recognized substantially in the 
representation of Mark ; Scholten, d. dilteste Hvang., krit. Unters., aus d. 
Holliind. v. Redepenning, 1869. Amongst these, Ewald and Scholten 
especially have laid down, in very dissimilar ways, a most complicated 
order of origination. This, according to Ewald, is as follows :—(1) The 
oldest Gospel, describing the most prominent events in the life of Jesus, 
made use of by the Apostle Paul, probably composed by the Evangelist 
Philip in the Greek language, but with a Hebrew coloring ; (2) the Hebrew 
collection of sayings by Matthew, containing chiefly large portions of dis- 
courses, but also narrative introductions ; (3) the Gospel of Mark, for which 
1 and 2 were used, yet of independent origin, although no longer preserved 
quite in its original form ; (4) the book of the higher history, which under- 
took to depict in a new fashion the very heights of the gospel history, and 
from which proceeds, ¢.g., the copious narrative of the temptation in 
Matthew and Luke ; (5) our present Gospel of Matthew, written in Greek, 
with the use of 1-4, especially, however, of Mark, and the collection of 
sayings, probably also of a writing upon the preliminary history ; (6, 7, 8) 
three different books, which may still be pointed out from the Gospel of Luke ; 
(9) the Gospel of Luke, in which all the hitherto enumerated writings, with 
the exception, however, of Matthew, were used. According to Scholten, 
however, a sketch by John Mark, after undergoing a first revision (Proto- 
Markus), was united with Matthew’s collection of sayings (Proto-Matthaeus), 
through which process arose a Deutero-Matthaeus, a second recension of 
which (Tvrito-Matthaeus) produced our first canonical Gospel ; the latter, 
however, must also have been already known to a second redactor of the 
Proto-Markus, i.e. to our canonical Mark (Deutero-Markus), as is shown by 
its putting aside the history of the birth. The view of Holtzmann is 
simpler, who regards an original Mark (A) as the sole basis of our present 
Mark, which, however, was also used, after the collection of sayings (A), 
by Matthew and Luke, yet in such a way that these two, along with A and 
A, made use also of other smaller written sources and oral traditions. 
Weiss, again, supposes the Adya to be the original Gospel, with which 
portions of the history, of the nature of sketches, yet without the history of 
the birth and passion, were already combined, and then makes our Mark 
follow at once, as a working up of the original Gospel with the recollections 
of Peter, The question, whether Luke made use of our Matthew, is denied, 


original Mark ; finds, however, in our Mark representation of the history, which may 
the traces of an earlier and more original again be recognized in our first Gospel. 


INTRODUCTION. PA 


not merely by Ewald, but also by Weisse, Reuss, Thiersch, Plitt, Weiss, 
Holtzmann, Weizsiicker. 

(4.) Mark, Luke, Matthew. So Wilke (der Urevangelist, 1838), B. Bauer. 
Comp. also Hitzig, ib. Johann. Markus und seine Schriften, 1843 ; and 
especially Volkmar, die Hvangelien od. Markus u. d. Synopsis, etc., 1870, 
according to whom the Gospel of Mark is said to be a self-conscious didactic 
poem upon a historical basis ; the Gospel of Luke a Pauline renewal of the 
original didactic writing against a Jewish-Christian reaction ; while the 
Gospel of Matthew is a combination of both in the universalistic Jewish- 
Christian sense. See also Volkmar, Urspr. uns. Evangelien nach d. 
Urkunden, 1866. 

(5.) Luke, Matthew, Mark. So Biisching, die vier Evangelisten mit ihren 
eigenen Worten zusammengesetzt, Hamb. 1766 ; Evanson, The Dissonance of 
the Four generally received Hvangelists, 1792. 

(6.) Luke, Mark, Matthew. So Vogel (in Gabler’s Journ. fiir auserl. theol. 
Lit. I. p. 1 ff.). A more minute statement and criticism of these various 
views belongs to the science of Historico-Critical Introduction. It may 
here suffice to note the following points. 

Since the testimony of Papias regarding the work of Mark furnishes 
no reason (see remark 1, p. 29) for regarding this work as different from 
our second canonical Gospel ; and since our present Gospel of Matthew is 
not identical with the oivragic tov Aoyiwv which the apostle composed, but 
is a non-apostolic historic product which gradually grew up out of this 
apostolic writing ; since, finally, Luke, who already presupposes a manifold 
evangelic literature, and who wrote after the destruction of Jerusalem, must 
be regarded in any case as the last of the Synoptics, while the tradition, 
which assigns the first place to Matthew, may be fully conceived and ex- 
plained from the very early existence of that apostolic civrazic tov Aoylov,— 
the Gospel of Mark thus most naturally presents itself, on a historical con- 
sideration of the origin of the three synoptic Gospels—and that without the 
assumption, which is devoid of historical testimony, and throws everything 
back into uncertainty, of an original writing,’ differing from its present 
form—as the one which is the oldest amongst the three, and which along- 
side of oral tradition and other original evangelic written sources, exercised 


1 Weisse, Ewald, Kostlin, Reuss, Schol- 
ten, and several others. It has been sought 
to determine the unknown magnitude of 
an original Mark, against which Weiss and 
Klostermann have also decidedly declared 
themselves, partly by means of a multitude 
of interpolations (comp. also Wilke and 
Volkmar) which our Mark contains, partly 
by means of many large omissions which it 
is said to have experienced, partly by the 
assumption of many variations in expres- 
sion, and in the setting forth of individual 
details. Holtzmann reduces the literary 
treatment which this original writing re- 
ceiyed through Mark—(1) to abbreviations 


of the discourses, and to the passing over 
of minutiae in the narratives ; (2) to an im- 
portant abbreviation at the beginning, and 
a great gap, occasioned by the Sermon on 
the Mount, with which, at the same time, 
two miracles have fallen out; (3) to brief 
explanatory additions and _ insertions. 
Weizsiicker goes further in comparing the 
evangelic fundamental document, which he 
assumes, with the present Mark. Wittich- 
en, too, finds in the latter a redaction of the 
fundamental document; while Scholten 
brings out the original Mark only after 
many arbitrary excisions. 


28 THE GOSPEL OF MATTHEW. 


a dominant influence upon the others. With this assumption that Mark is 
the oldest of the Synoptics, the distinctive internal character of this Gos- 
pel is quite in harmony,—the omission of all preliminary histories which 
cannot be explained as resulting from design (according to Baur, from neu- 
trality), the beginning [of the history] with the appearance of the Baptist, 
the as yet altogether undeveloped narrative of the temptation, the circum- 
stantial treatment of the history of the miracles, the freedom from legend- 
ary insertions in the history of the Passion which are found in Matthew, the 
objective character which, nevertheless, indicates the theological design and 
method, and especially the original stamp of direct liveliness and pictur- 
esque clearness of style and description. ‘‘ This enamel of the fresh flower, 
this full pure life of the materials” (Ewald, Jahrb. I. p. 204), cannot be ex- 
plained from the ‘‘ tendency towards what is drastic and striking” (Kahnis), 
or from a purely ‘‘ subjective manner on the part of the author” (Késtlin), 
and is not reconcilable with the assumption of a compilatory treatment ; 
while the peculiar omission, moreover, and abbreviation on the one side, and 
the numerous, more circumstantial narratives and individual features on the 
other, which Mark exhibits, when compared with Matthew, would be con- 
ceivable neither psychologically nor historically, if Mark were the copyist 
and extractor of Matthew,(or even of Matthew and Luke). See especially 
Weiss, Holtzmann, Weizsiicker, Klostermann. The Gospel of Mark, which, 
agreeably to its extent, arrangement, and presentation of the gospel mate- 
rial, flowed most directly from the early Christian tradition, must have pre- 
ceded our present Gospel of Matthew, and it is only the actual composition 
of the Apostle Matthew’s collection of sayings, which can be regarded as 
the source which Mark, and that with the independence of his peculiar ob- 
ject, which did not go in quest of copious accounts of discourses, made use 
of from Matthew. His Gospel, moreover, had the authority of Peter in its 
favor (see the fragment of Papias) ; and it is all the more explicable, when 
the Hebrew Gospel of Matthew gradually formed itself amongst the Chris- 
tians of Palestine out of the Apostle Matthew’s collection of sayings, that it 
obtained a very substantial influence not only upon the shaping of this it- 
self as to contents and form, but was also, at its final redaction and subse- 
quent translation into the Greek language, made use of in such a way that 
the community even of expressions, which appears so often in the portions 
that are common, is thereby explained, exactly as at a later time again Luke 
had the Gospel of Mark also as one of his sources, and by the manner in 
‘ which he made use of it, might make it appear as if it occupied a middle 
position between the first and third Gospels, borrowing in a dependent 
manner from both ; a view by which a crying injustice is done to Mark un- 
der the domination of the Griesbachian hypothesis’ (especially, also, by de 


1ZLachmann, JV. 7., ed. maj. Praef. p. 
Xvi., appropriately says that this hypothesis 
represents Mark as ‘* ineptissimum desulto- 
rem, qui nune taedio, modo cupiditate, tum 
negligentia, denique vecordi studio, inter evan- 
gelia Matthaei et Lucae incertus feratur atque 
oberret.”” The most thorough demonstra- 


tion of its inaccuracy, see in Holtzmann, 
p. 118 ff. Compare also the whole of his ex- 
cellent section upon the linguistic character 
of the Synoptists (p. 271 ff.). The correct 
recognition of the linguistic peculiarities of 
the three decidedly excludes any mechan- 
ical compilation. 


INTRODUCTION. 29 


Wette, Baur, Késtlin, Bleek, Keim). If accordingly, besides oral tradition 
the civratic tov Aoyiwv of the Apostle Matthew, aud our Gospel of Mark, are 
to be regarded as the chief Christian sources of our first Gospel, to the lat- 
ter of which sources the relation of our Matthew is often directly that of 
omission and extraction, there yet must also have been other original evan- 
gelic writings in existence, which were worked up along with these when 
the Gospel was moulding itself into shape. Such individual writings are 
certainly to be recognized in the genealogy and in the preliminary history, 
and though less certainly determinable, yet also not to be denied in the fur- 
ther course of the history. The uniformity of the linguistic stamp, which 
exists in general, finds its sufficient explanation partly in the final redaction 
which preceded the translation, partly in the unity of the translator. 


Remark 1.—The testimony of the Presbyter John (not of the Evangelist 
John, as Zahn, Riggenbach, and Klostermann think), in Papias, regarding 
Mark, as quoted in Eusebius iii. 39, is as follows:—“Mapkoc wév, éppn- 
veutync Wérpov yevopevoc, doa Euvynpmovevoev axplpocg Eypaper, 
od mévtoe TaEeL, TA DTS TOK XptoTton F AcyOéEvta 7 THaxbévTa: 
ovTe yap 7KOVGE TOV KUpiov ObTE TAaPHKOAODOHoOEV aiTo, boTeE- 
pov 0&, o¢ Egnv, Tlétpo, 6¢ mpd¢ rac ypetac ETOLEITO Tag OLdOaG- 
kKadiacg, GAd’ ovxy dorep ctvtagiv THY KVYpLakKOv ToLovpmevoc 
Adyov (al. Aoyiwv, as Laemmer reads). "Qote ovdév Huaptre Mapkoc 
otrwo évia ypapacg O¢ anwenvynpdvevoev: éEvdog yap éExotHnoarTo 
Tpovotav, TOD pydsv OV HkKovoe Tapadkineiv 7 petoachai Te év 
avtoic. Tavta pév odv iotépyrat tT Ilaria wepi tov Mépkov:” 
‘‘Mark, being Peter’s interpreter, wrote accurately as he remembered them, but 
yet not in order, the things which were said or done by Christ. For he was not 
a hearer of the Lord, nor did he follow Him, but as I said, afterwards accom- 
panied Peter, who, as he had need, shaped his teaching, but not as if making a 
methodical arrangement of the Lord’s sayings. So that Mark made no mistake 
in writing what he remembered. For he was careful in one respect—to omit 
nothing of the things that he had heard, or to falsify anything in relation to 
them. This is the account which Papias gives of Mark.’’ This statement, 
now, in the opinion of Credner (compare also Schleiermacher in the Stud. u. 
Kritik. 1832, p. 758 ff.), Schneckenburger, Weisse, Schwegler, Baur, Kostlin, 
and others, is said not to be appropriate to our Gospel of Mark, because raéuc, 
in general, is a feature that is applicable to it. According to Baur, the work 
meant by Papias is to be conceived of as after the fashion of the Clementine 
Homilies ; according to K6stlin, as a Petrine gospel, containing for the most part 
discourses of Jesus ; according to Ewald and Hilgenfeld, its contents were at 
least of greater extent than our Mark. But the meaning of the above passage 
is as follows :—After Mark had become the interpreter, i.e. not the translator 
(Grimm in the Stud. u. Kritik. 1872, p. 686), but the secretary of Peter, he com- 
mitted to writing so much of what had either been spoken or done by Christ 
as his memory enabled him to recall, although not in the order of historical 
succession. He could not have adopted the latter plan, because he had been 
neither a hearer nor a follower of the Lord ; but at a later date, as mentioned 
(ut dizi, namely, in the words épyyy. Tlétpov yevdu.), he became a follower of 
Peter, ‘who regulated his doctrinal teaching according to the requirements of the oc- 


30 THE GOSPEL OF MATTHEW. 


casion, though not in such a way as if he had intended to set forth the discourses of 
the Lord in an orderly combination. Mark therefore committed no error in having writ- 
ten down some things in the shape that his recollection presented! them to him; for one 
thing he made of importance, to omit nothing of what he had heard (from Peter), and 
to falsify none of the statements.’ 'The éypapev, mentioned at the beginning of the 
statement, refers then to the writing down which immediately followed the hearing of 
the addresses of Peter, which might take place ov rafe., not according to histori- 
ical order, but only in the form of notices, in the fashion of Adversaria. The 
ypapac, on the other hand, that follows, refers to the later composition of the Gos- 
pel, as clearly appears from the é1.a which stands beside it (in opposition to 
the preceding éca), This é1va, however, brings into prominence some things, 
out of the entire contents of his Gospel, which might, indeed, have been ex- 
pected to be given in a different way from thatin which Mark’s memory recalled 
them, i.e. in a better pragmatic arrangement and connection ; but in reference 
to which the presbyter justifies the evangelist on the ground of the accidental, 
fragmentary style and fashion in which his notices regarding the matter of the 
Gospel originated. It is not, then, to the gospel writing of Mark as a whole, 
but only to a few individual portions of it (évia), that the presbyter denies the 
property of raév¢ ; and he explains this defect, and offers an excuse for it.? If, 
then, there is no ground stated in the words of Papias for any intention to 
point out in the Gospel of Mark generally a deficiency in definite arrangement 
(Ebrard, Reuss),—or at least a deficiency in closeness of succession, perhaps 
also in chronological certainty (Zahn),—these words cannot, on the other side, 
serve also to prove that our present Gospel is not intended. The ov rdafe., see- 
ing it is limited only to some things, is to be left entirely in its objective accu- 
racy, as an attested defect in the Gospel of Mark, without our having to refer 
this attestation to a comparison—lying at its basis—with another Gospel, espe- 
cially with John (Ewald, Jahrb. I. p. 206) or with Matthew (Ebrard, Hilgenfeld, 
Weiss, Bleek, Holtzmann, and several others), or even with the work of Papias 


1 Namely, without bringing this €vca into 
the historically connected arrangement. 
We might also explain ws amrepyyjm. : as he 
has related it in his treatise (comp. Plato, 
Theag. p. 121 D, Tim. p. 20 E, Crit. 110 B; 
Xenophon, Cyr. viii. 2. 13; Demosthenes, 
345. 10. a/.), z.e. in no better order. But the 
above view is to be preferred on account of 
the correlation with oca éuvnwovevcev.—Ob- 
serve, moreover, that it is not said that 
Mark wrote only év.a, and that therefore he 
in general wrote incompletely (so still Weiz- 
sicker, p. 29); but that he wrote some 
things in such way, ete. Késtlin, Weiss, 
Klostermann, have taken the right view. 

2 Compare also Klostermann, @. Markuse- 
vang. p. 327, who, however, misunderstands 
the introduction to the passage of Papias, 
in interpreting, in a way which is linguisti- 
cally incorrect, ooa, which is quantitative, 
as qualitative (consequently, as if ota stood 
in the passage), and épunv. Il. yevou. as a 
modal definition of 60a. . . éypaev (so also 
Grau, I. p. 178), where éepunvevtis is said to 


be a figurative expression, in so far as Mark 
presented to his hearers the addresses of 
Peter, which they themselves could not 
hear; and thereby was, as it were, an in- 
terpreter of the apostle. Apart from this 
extension of the meaning of €pyyvevtis, 
which is forced and artificial, and more ap- 
propriate toa poetic context than to one of 
so simple a nature, and which is opposed, 
moreover, to the testimonies of the 
Fathers such as Irenaeus, iii. 10. 6, Tertul- 
lian, c. Mare. iv. 5, al., Klostermann ex- 
plains the passage as if the words were: 
Mdpxos pmév épuyvevtns Ilétpov eyéveto, ola 
é€uvnudvevoey akptB@s ypawas, Or: M. mev 
ola éuvynpm. akpiBas Eypawev, oVTwS EpuyvEvTHS 
Klostermann also errs in 
this, that he expunges the comma after ov 
pév Taéer, and, again, supplies axpiBas éypawev 
after mpayOevta, “Oca euvnuor, is, rather, an 
intermediate clause; and the ta ro tov 
Xpicrod, ete., is that which Mark wrote 
axptB@s, ov mévToL Taker, 


Tléerpov yevomevos. 


INTRODUCTION. bl 


(Weisse). The inference, moreover, is not to be drawn from the present pas- 
sage, that the alleged original Mark contained chiefly discourses of Christ (Kést- 
lin), since ov y Gorep ovvTagiy TOV KupLaKav ToLobusvoc Adywv characterizes a potiori 
the instructions of Peter, and that in a negalive manner in comparison with 
Papias’ own work, which had the Adyia as its contents. Peter, in his didac- 
ka/iat, certainly communicated the Lord’s sayings, but in a sporadic manner, 
according to the measure of the varying needs [of his hearers], but not in 
such a way as if he had wished to produce a ovvrusic of them ; and he connect- 
ed them in so far with the relative historical instructions, that his companion 
Mark might write down from the addresses of the apostle to which he had list- 
ened, not merely rd j7x0 Tov Xpiorov AexGévta, but rad 7 AEVOEvTa } Tpay- 
Oévra, 


Remark 2.— With regard to the order of the synoptic Gospels in respect of 
their origin, the tradition of the church is unanimous for the priority of Mat- 
thew, and almost unanimous for assigning a middle position to Mark, in oppo- 
sition to which there is only the isolated notice in Eusebius vi. 14, by Clement 
of Alexandria, in favor of the hypothesis of Griesbach : zpoyeypaphar éieyev 
TOV ELAYYEAIWY TA TEPLEYOUTA Ta¢ yeveadvyiac, ‘‘ He said that those Gospels which 
contain the genealogies were written first.’? That unanimous tradition, how- 
ever, is reconcilable also with our view regarding the origin of the Gospels, in 
so far, namely, that Matthew in reality wrote before Mark, i.e. his ovvragéic rév 
Zoyiov, out of which our present Gospel then grew up. To this relation to 
the first written source of the Gospel is the origin of that tradition to be refer- 
red.—Altogether without reason has Baur, in the theol. Jahrb. 1853, p. 93, with 
the approval of Volkmar, interpreted the predicate of Mark, 6 coAoB0daxtvAo¢ 
(with the mutilated finger), in the Philosophumena Origenis, which cannot, without 
arbitrariness, be understood otherwise than quite in its proper sense (see 
Ewald, Jahrb. VII. p. 197), of the epitomatory character of the Gospel. 


Remark 3.— Although the Gospel of Mark is the oldest of the Synoptics, and 
has apparently preserved in part purer and more original traditions than the 
Gospel of Matthew, it may still be partially inferior in point of originality to the 
tradition which has stamped its impress upon the latter, since Mark could mainly 
work up his notices, gathered from his connection with Peter, only by help 
of tradition; and since, on the other side, the Gospel of Matthew was moulded 
into shape gradually, and in Palestine itself, so that in any case, even apart from 
the apostolic collection of sayings, which passed over substantially into this 
Gospel, many older elements of tradition, and older documentary portions 
than any in Mark, may have been preserved init. To the critical comparison 
of the narratives given in Matthew with those of Mark, no hindrance can then 
be interposed by the placing of the latter first ; as in Mark in comparison with 
Matthew, so also in Matthew in comparison with Mark, we may recognize more 
original elements, and thus, in so far, partly assign to the first also a primary 
position. 





SUPERS ORLP TION. 


> \ ~ 
Evayyédov nata MatOaior, 


Tus superscription has the oldest and best witnesses in its favor. Kara 
Mar§aiov (B 8, Codd. Lat.) is in conformity with this, because whole volumes 
bore the title of Evayyédvov. All longer superscriptions are of later date, as : 
to x. M. ebayyéAuov ; TO x, M, Gysov ebayyéduov 5 evayyéduov éx Tov K. M. 3 EK TOU K, 
M. evayyéAcov. Both the latter are derived from Lectionaries. — Instead of 
Maréaioc, Lachmann and Tischendorf write Ma§§aioc, after B D &. 


EvayyéAcov signifies in the old language a present given in return for joyful 
news,! or « sacrifice offered up for the same.? First in later Greek only does 
it also mean the good news itself.* So throughout the N. T. (corresponding 
to the Hebrew 771¥3), where it signifies kar’ é£oyAv, ‘‘ pre-eminently,” the 
joyful news of the Messiah's kingdom,* which news preached Jesus as the Mes- 
siah. So also in the superscriptions of the Gospels, which present the 
knowledge of salvation by Jesus as the Messiah in historical form, in the form 
of a historical demonstration of the Messiahship of Jesus. The designation of 
our writings as news of salvation by the Messiah (ciayyédca) is derived from 
the most remote ecclesiastical antiquity.® — xata Mazfaiov] The knowledge 
‘of Messianic salvation, as it was shaped (in writing) by Matthew.’ There is thus 
also a evayyéAtov kata Maréaiov, kataé Mépxov, and soon.” It is incorrect, how- 
ever, to maintain, as do others, and even Kuinoel, after older writers, that 
xara denotes simply the genitive. For if so, then, firstly, this case, which 
certainly most obviously suggested itself, and which would also have been 
analogous to Paul’s expression, ré evayyéAié6v ov (Rom, ii. 16, xvi. 25), 
would have been employed ; secondly, the Hebrew 9 of authorship, which 

‘is to be viewed as the dative of connection, is not applicable here, because 
the LXX. does not express it by card ; thirdly, even in the passages which 
are quoted from Greek writers, the genitival relation is not contained di- 


1Hom. Qd. 152, 166; Plut. Ages. 33; 2 6In Villoison’s Scholia on Homer we 


Sam. iv. 10; Cic. Ait. ii. 12. 

2 Xen. Heil. i. 6. 26, iv. 3.7; Aristoph. Z@. 
656 ; Diod. Sic. xv. 74; Pollux, v. 129. 

$Plut. Set. 11; Lucian. Asin. 26; Appian, 
B. C, iv. 20; LXX. 2 Sam. xviii. 25. 

4 Matt. iv. 23, ix. 85, xxiv. 14; Acts xx. 
24. 
5See Justin. Apol. i. 66, Dial. c. Tryph. 
100. 


have the expressions : “Ounpos kata “Aptorap- 
xov, kata Zyvodorov, kata “Aptaropavny, 

7Comp. Euseb. iii. 24: Mar@atos... 
ypady mapaso’s TO Kart’ evayy. 
Matthew isin this way designated as the 
author of this written form of the Gospel, 
which in itself is one (Credner, Gesch, d. 
Kanon, p. 87. 


auTov 


34 THE GOSPEL OF MATTHEW. 


rectly, but is only derived in the relation of the thing to the persons, as in 
the numerous passages in Polybius.’ It is quite opposed to history (Intro- 
duction, sec. 2) when others? fall into the opposite extreme, and draw the 
inference from xara that the composition is not here ascribed to the evange- 
lists, but that all that is said is, that the writings are composed after them, 
ie. after their manner. So Faustus the Manichaean in Augustine ;* Volk- 
mar, who sees himself driven, by the fact that Luke and John were the 
authors of the third and fourth Gospels, to the arbitrary assumption that 
the superscriptions of the first two Gospels are to be regarded as original, 
while those of the third and fourth were intentionally added by a third 
hand for the sake of uniformity, after the proper meaning of the cara in the 
first two had come to be lost. Even in the titles of the apocryphal gospels 
(evayyéA. Ka? ‘EBpaiovc) karad Aesignates not the readers, for whom they were 
intended, but the gospel, as it had shaped itself under the hands of the 
Hebrews, etc., the gospel as redacted by the Hebrews, in this sense also shortly 
termed ‘EGpaixéy.* 


CRAP IER a: 


Vv. 1-17. In the writing of the names there are manifold variations in mss., 
verss., and Fathers. Lachm. and Tisch. have in vv. 1, 6, 17 Aaveid, which is 
attested throughout as the manner of writing the word by the oldest and best 
Mss. ; ver. 5. ‘Iwfid, after BC A &, verss. Fathers ; ver. 8 f. ’Oleiarv, ’Ocelac, 
after B A 8; ver. 10. ’Ayuéc, after B C M A 8, verss. Epiph. ; ver. 10 f. "Iwceiay, 
‘Iwoeiac, after B A, Sahid.; ver. 15. Ma6@av, after B*. Lachmann has, be- 
sides, in ver. 5, Bodc, after C, and Tischendorf (8th ed.) Boéc, after BS; 
Lachm. and Tisch. (8th ed.) in ver. 7 f. ’Acag, after BC 8, verss. — Ver. 6. 
0 Bacthevc, Which BT 8, 1, 71, Syr. Copt. Sahid. Arm. al. omit (deleted by 
Lachm. and Tisch.), has the preponderance of voices in its favor; its em- 
phasis being overlooked on account of what precedes, it was regarded as super- 
fluous, and was easily passed over. — Ver. 11. After éyévvnoe, MU Curss. 
have tov "Iwaxetu* Iwakeiu dé éyévvyce. A later interpolation (yet already before 
Trenaeus), but put in circulation after Porphyry had already reproached the 
church with a defective genealogy. — Ver. 18. BC PS ZA, Curss. Eus. Ath. 
Max. have yéveorc. So also Lachm. and Tisch. Others: yévrnowc, which 
has been adopted by Elz. Scholz, and Rinck. The former is to be preferred, 
‘because the latter might very easily arise from the frequently preceding éyévygce 
and fyevv79n, and might also appear more appropriate to the connection (partus 
modus). Comp. ii. 1, Luke i, 14.— Ver. 19. mapadevyyaticac] Lachm. and 
‘Tisch. have devyuvatica, only, indeed, after BZ 8** I, Schol. on Orig., and 


1 Schweighauser’s Lev. p. 823; comp. al- 
ready, Thue. vi. 16 5: 
Bernhardy, p. 241; Valekenaer, Schol. I. p. 
4: Buttmann, WV. 7. Gramm. p. 187 [B. T. 
pp. 156, 157]. See also 2 Mace. ii. 13: év tots 
UTOMVNMaTLOMOls Tols KaTa Tov Neemiav, and 
Grimm on the passage. 


aR Sut ata re 
€v TW KaT avTous Blo 5 


2 Eckermann in the theolog. Beitr. 5 Bd. 2 
St. p. 106 ff. 

3¢, Faust. xxvii. 2, xvii. 2, xxxiii.3; Cred- 
ner’s Hinleit. §§ 88-90 ; Jachmann in Illgen’s 
Zeitschr. 1842, 2, p. 13. 

4 Epiph. Haer. xxx. 13. 


GHAP TTA lt 35 


Euseb., but correctly, as devyywatitw is preserved only in Col. ii. 15, while rapa- 
devywatitw (Heb. vi. 6) is common in the LXX. and elsewhere, and suggested 
itself, therefore, as the better known and stronger expression (comp. Scholion 
in Tisch.). — Ver. 24. dveyep9eic] Lachm. and Tisch. (8th ed.) have éyepHeic, after 
B C* Z 8, Curss. Epiph. The less current compound verb gave place to the 
very common (comp. il. 14) simple form.—Ver. 25.70v vidv avrg TOV Tpw- 
76To0KOv] Lachm. and Tisch. have simply vid», after B Z &, 1, 33, Copt. Sahid. 
Syr- Codd. It. Ambr. al, Certainly (comp. especially Bengel) the Received 
reading has the appearance of having originated from Luke ii. 7 (where there 
is no various reading). The witnesses, however, in favor of the Recepla great- 
ly preponderate ; the virginity of Mary, also (against which, according to the 
testimony of Jerome, doubts were raised in consequence of the mpwrédtoxov), 
certainly more probably suggested the removal of the tpwrdroxov than its in- 
sertion. Comp. Milland Wetstein. Finally, had vidv merely been the original 
reading in the present passage, the tpwrdroxov in Luke ii. 7 could scarcely have 
remained unassailed. 


Ver. 1. BiBAog yevécewc] Book of origin; DITA 79D, Gen. ii. 4, v. 1, 
LXX.' The first verse contains the title of the genealogy which follows in vv. 
2-16, which contains the origin of Christ from the Messianic line that runs 
on from the time of Abraham (genitive of contents). The evangelist adopted 
the genealogical piece of writing (8/3A0c), and which ‘‘velut extra corpus 
historiae prominet,” ‘‘as it were stands out beyond the body of the his- 
tory” (Grotius), without alteration, as he found it, and with its title 
also. Others*® take yéveovc as meaning life, and regard the words as a super- 
scription to the entire Gospel : commentarius de vita Jesu. Contrary to the 
usage of the language ; for in Judith xii. 18, and Wisdom vii. 5, yévecuc Ae- 
notes the origin, the commencing point of life ; in Plato, Phaedr. p. 252 
D, it means existence ; in Hierocles, p. 298, the creation, or that which is 
created ; and in Jas. iii. 6, tpoydc tHe yevécewe is the rpoyde which begins 
with birth. And if we were to suppose, with Olearius,* that the superscrip- 
tion liber de ofiginibus Jesu Christi was selected first with reference to the 
commencement of the history, to which the further history was then append- 
ed with a distinctive designation,® as N77\A also confessedly does not al- 
ways announce a mere genealogy (Gen. v. 1 ff., xi. 27 ff.), nay, may even stand 
without any genealogical list following it °—so the immediate connection in 
which iSi0¢ . . . Xpiorod stands with viod Aav., viovd ’ABp., here necessitates 
us to think from the very beginning, in harmony with the context, of the 
genealogy merely ; and the commencement of ver. 18, where the yéveovc in 
the narrower sense, the actual: origination, is now related, separates the 
section vv. 18-25 distinctly from the preceding genealogical list, so that 
the first words of chap. ii., rod d3 "Ijcot yevvnévtoc, connect themselves, as 
carrying on the narrative, with vv. 18-25, where the origin of Jesus, down 


1 Comp. Gen. vi. 9, xi. 10. 4Comp. Hammond and Vitringa, also 
2 So Beza, Calvin, Grotius, Bengel, Wet- Euthym. Zigabenus. 
stein, Paulus, Kuinoel, Gratz, de Wette, 5 Comp. Catonis Censorii Origines. 
Baumgarten-Crusius, and others. 6 Gen. ii. 4, xxxvii. 2 ff. 


° Bede, Maldonatus, Schleusner. 


36 THE GOSPEL OF MATTHEW. 


to His actual birth, is related. This is, at the same time, in answer to 
Fritzsche, who translates it as velumen de J. Christi originibus, and, appeal- 
ing to the words in the beginning of ch. ii, regards Bif20¢ yevécews, x.T.2., 
as the superscription of the jirst chapter (so also Delitzsch), as well as to Ols- 
hausen (see also Ewald and Bleek), who takes it as the superscription of the 
Jirst two chapters. —If the Israelite set a high value, in his own individual 
instance, upon a series of ancestors of unexceptional pedigree,’ how much 
more must such be found to be the case on the side of the Messiah !— Inoow 
Xpicrov| The name pw? (Ex. xxiv. 18 ; Num. xiii. 16), or, after the exile, 
pw (Neh. vii. 7), was very common,’ and denotes Jehovah is helper. This 
meaning, contained in the name Jesus (comp. Sir. xlvi. 1), came to full per- 
sonal manifestation in Christ, see ver. 21. Xproréc corresponds to the 
Hebrew MW, anointed, which was used partly of priests ;° as a prophet also, 
according to 1 Kings xix. 16, might be an anointed person. From the 
time of the Book of Daniel—for throughout the whole later period also, 
down to the time of Christ, the Messianic idea was a living one amongst 
the people * —this theocratic name, and that as a king’s name, was applied, 
according to the Messianic explanation of the second Psalm, to the king of 
David's race, whose coming, according to the predictions of the prophets, was ever 
more ardently looked for, but with hopes that became ever purer, who was to raise 
the nation to its theocratic consummation, to restore the kingdom to its highest 
power and glory, and extend His blessings to the heathen as well, while, as a nec- 
essary condition to all this, He was, in a religious and moral respect, to work 
out the true spiritual government of God, and bring it to a victorious termi- 
nation. See on the development of the idea and hope of the Messiah, espe- 
cially Ewald.* According to B. Bauer,* Jesus is said to have first developed 
the Messianic idea out of His own consciousness, the community to have 
clothed it in figures, and then to have found these figures also in the Old 
Testament, while the Jews first received the idea from the Christians! In 
answer to this view, which frivolously inverts the historical relation ;7 and 
on the Messianic ideas of the Jews at the time of Christ, especially Hil- 
genfeld,® according to whom, however, the original self-consciousness of 
the Lord had been matured at an earlier date, before he found? for it, in 


1 Rom. xi. 1; Phil. iii. 5; Josephus, c. Ap. 
ii. 7; Lightfoot, Hor. Heb. p. 178. 

2 See the different persons who bear this 
Name in Keim, Gescht. J. I. p. 384 ff. 

3 Lev. iv. 3, v. 16, vi. 15, Ps. cv. 15; partly 
of kings, 1 Sam. xxiv. 7, 11, Ps. ii. 2, Isa. xlv. 
1, comp. Dan. ix. 25, 26. 

4 Comp. Langen, d. Judenthum in Palaes- 
tina zur Zeit Christi, 1866. Weissenbach, 
Jesu in regno cod. dignitas, 1868, p. 47 ff. 

5 Gesch. Christ. p. 183 ff., ed. 3 [H. T: by. 
Glover, p. 140 ff.] ; Bertheau in @. Jahrb. f. 
D. Th. IV. p. 595 ff., V. p. 486 ff. ; Riehm in 
ad. Stud. u. Kritik. 1865, 1. and II. [E. T., 
Clark, Edinburgh, 1876]. 

® Comp. Volkmar, Rel. Jesu, p. 113. 

7 See Ebrard, Avitik. d. evang. Gesch., ed. 


8, § 120 ff. [E. T. 2d ed., Clark, Edinburgh, p. 
485 f.]. 

8 Messias Judacorum libris eorum paulo 
ante et paulo post Christum natum conscriptis 
illustratus, ‘‘the Messiah of the Jews illus- 
trated by their books written a little before 
anda little after the birth of Christ,” 1869; 
also Holtzmann in d. Jahrb. f. d. Theol. 
1867, p. 389 ff. 

® In connection with this view, we would 
be obliged to acquiesce in the belief of a 
very radical misunderstanding, which 
would permeate the gospel history from the 
baptism and the witness of John, namely, 
that the evangelists ‘“‘apprehended as a 
beginning what was rather a result.” On 
exegetical grounds this cannot be justified. 


CHAP. T.g:2) oe 37 


His confession of Himself as the Messiah, a name that might be uttered be- 
fore His contemporaries, and an objective representation that was conceiv- 
able for Himself. — The ojjicial name Xpioréc, for Jesus, soon passed over in 
the language of the Christians into a nomen proprium, in which shape it ap- 
pears almost universally in the Epistles and in the Acts of the Apostles, 
with or without the article, after the nature of proper namesin general. In 
the Gospels, Xpioréc¢ stands as a proper name only in Matt. i. 1, 16, 17, 18 ; 
Mark i.1; Johni. 17; and appropriately, because not congruous to the 
development of the history and its connection, but spoken from the stand- 
point of the much later period of its composition, in which ’Iycov¢e Xpicréc 
had been already long established as a customary name in the language of 
Christians ; as here also (comp. Mark i. 1) in the superscription, the whole 
of the great name "Iyoovce Xpiordé¢ is highly appropriate, nay, necessary. — 
Further, Jesus could be the bearer of the idea of Messiah, for the realization 
of which He knew from the beginning that He was sent, in no other way 
than in its national definiteness, therefore also without the exclusion of its 
political element, the thought of which, however,—and this appears most 
fully in John,—was transfigured by Him into the idea of the highest and 
universal spiritual government of God, so that the religious and moral task 
of the Messiah was His clear aim from the very outset, in striving after and 
attaining which He had to prepare the way for the Messiah’s kingdom, and 
finally had to lay its indestructible, necessary foundation (founding of the 
new covenant) by His atoning death, while He pointed to the future, which, 
according to all the evangelists, was viewed by Himself as near at hand, 
for the final establishment, glory, and power of the kingdom, when He will 
solemnly appear (Parousia) as the Messiah who is Judge and Ruler. — viow 
Aaveid] for, according to prophetic promise, He must be a descendant of 
David, otherwise He would not have been the Messiah.!' David is des- 
ignated as Abraham’s descendant, because the genealogical table must be- 
gin nationally with Abraham, who, according to the promise, is the original 
ancestor of the series of generations (Gal. iii. 16), so that consequently the 
venerable chiefs of this genealogy immediately appear in the superscription. 

Luke’s point of view (iii. 23) goes beyond the sphere of the nation, while 
Mark (/.c.) sets out from the theocratico- a a conception of the 
Messiah. [See note I., p. 55.] 

Vivier: Ki. rs &deApobe ait. | ‘‘ Promissiones fuere in familia Israelis,” ‘‘ the 
promises were in the family of Israel,” Bengel.—Ver. 3. These twin sons 
of Judalt were illegitimate, Gen. xxxvii1. 16-30. The Jews were inclined 
to find a good side to the transgressions of their ancestors, and alleged here, 
e.g., that Thamar entertained the idea of becoming an ancestress of kings 
and prophets. See Wetstein and Fritzsche. The reason why Thamar is 
here brought forward, as well as Rahab, Ruth, and Bathsheba in wv. 5, 6 
(for vbx Av Moc yeveadoyeicbat yuvaixac, ‘it was not the custom for women to 
be reckoned in genealogies,” Euth. Zigabenus), is not ‘‘ wt tacitae Judaeo- 

1 John vii. 42; Rom. i. 3; Acts xiii. 22 f. ; Matt. xii. 23, xxi. 9, xxii. 42; Luke xviii. 38. 


the Messiah is called pre-eminently aya {2 Comp. Wetstein, and Babylon. Sanhed?. fol. 
; 97. 


38 THE GOSPEL OF MATTHEW. 


rum objectioni occurrerebur,” ‘‘to meet a tacit objection of the Jews,” Wet- 
stein ; for the reproach of illegitimate birth was not raised against Jesus in 
the apostolic age, nor probably before the second century,’ and would be 
very indelicately referred to by the naming of these women ; nor the point 
of view of exactness (Fritzsche), which would not explain why these women 
and no others were mentioned ; least of all the tendency to cast into the 
shade the Jewish genealogical tree (Hilgenfeld). In keeping with the 
whole design of the genealogical register, which must terminate in the won- 
derful one who is born of woman, that reason cannot, without arbitrariness, 
be found save in this, that the women named entered in an extraordinary 
manner into the mission of continuing the genealogy onwards to the future 
Messiah, and might thereby appear to the genealogist and the evangelist as 
typi Mariae,* and in so doing the historical stains which cleaved to them 
(to Ruth also, in so far as she was a Moabitess) were not merely fully com- 
pensated by the glorious approval which they found precisely in the light in 
which their history was regarded by the nation,* but far outweighed and 
even exalted to extraordinary honors. See the numerous Rabbinical pas- 
sages, relating especially to Thamar, Rahab, and Ruth, in Wetstein én loc., 
and on Heb. xi. 81. Olshausen is too indefinite : ‘‘in.order to point to the 
marvellous gracious leading of God in the ordering of the line of the Mes- 
siah.” Luther and some of the Fathers drag in here what lies very remote : 
because Christ interested Himself in sinners ; Lange, more remote still, ‘‘in 
order to point to the righteousness which comes, not from external holiness, 
but from faith ;” and Delitzsch,* ‘‘because the sinless birth of Mary was 
prepared throughout by sin.” 

Ver. 5. Boaz is also called, in Ruth iv. 21 and 1 Chron. ii. 11, son of 
Salma; but his mother Rahab is not mentioned. The author without 
doubt drew from a tradition which was then current, and presupposed as 
known (according to Ewald it was apocryphal), which gave Salma as a 
wife to her who had risen to honor by her conduct in Jericho (Heb. xi. 
31; Jas. ii. 25). The difficulties which, according to Rosenmiiller, 
Kuinoel, and Gratz, arise from the chronology,—namely, that Rahab must 
have become a mother at seventy or eighty years of age,—are, considering 
the uncertainty of the genealogical tradition, which already appears in 
Ruth iv. 20, as well as the freedom of Orientals in general with regard to 
genealogies, not sufficient to justify here the assumption of some other 
Rahab.® 

Ver. 6. Tov Aaveid tov Bacidéa] Although an apposition with the article 
follows the proper name, yet Aaveid also takes the article, not for the sake of 
uniformity with the preceding name (de Wette), but in order to designate 
David demonstratively, as already marked out in ver 1. In ver. 16, also, 
the article before ’Iwo7, which is accompanied by an apposition, has, in 


1 See Thilo, ad Cod. Apocr. I. p. 526 f. 1850, p. 575 f. 

2 Paulus, de Wette, Ebrard ; comp. Gro- 5 According to Megill. f.14, 2, and Koheleth 
tius on ver. 3. R. 8, 10, Joshua married Rahab,—a tradition 

3 Heb. xi. 31; Jas. ii. 25. which is not followed by our genealogy. 


4 In Rudelbach and Guericke’s Zeitschrift, 


CHAP. I., 8-11. 39 


keeping with the deep significance of his paternal relation to Jesus, demon- 
strative power.’ — The roy Gaoi2éa also, and the subsequent emphatic repeti- 
tion of 6 PBaovdedc, are a distinction for David, with whom the Messiah’s 
genealogy entered upon the kingly dignity.—rjc rev Oipiov| Such methods 
of expression by the simple genitive suppose the nature of the relationship 
in question to be known, as here it is that of wife.* 

Ver. 8. "Iopdu . . . ’O¢iav] Three kings, Ahaziah, Joaz, and Amaziah, are 
wanting between these.*° The common opinion is that of Jerome, that the 
omission was made for the sake of obtaining an equal division of the names, 
in order not to go beyond the three Tesseradecades. Such omissions were 
nothing unusual. The evangelist accepted the genealogical list without 
alteration, just as he found it ; and the cause of that omission cannot be 
pointed out, but probably was only,and that without special design, the simi- 
larity of those names, in which way the omission also which occurs in ver. 
11 is to be explained. Ebrard and Riggenbach, erroneously introducing 
the point of view of theocratic illegality (comp. Lange), are of opinion that 
Matthew omitted the three kings for this reason, that Joram, on account of 
his marriage with the daughter of Jezebel, and of his conduct, had deserved. 
that his posterity should be exterminated down to the fourth generation ;° 
that Matthew accordingly declared the descendants of the heathen Jezebel, 
down to the fourth generation, unworthy of succeeding to the theocratic 
throne. This breaks down at once before the simple éyévvyoe. The omis- 
sions are generally not to be regarded as consciously made, otherwise they 
would conflict with ver. 17 (racar), and would amount to a falsification. 

Ver. 11. The son of Josiah was Joakim, and his son was Jechoniah. 
Here, consequently, a link is wanting, and accordingly several uncials, 
curss., and a few versions * contain the supplement : Iwolac dé éyévyyae tov 
"Twancip’ "lwanetp 0& éyévence rov’lexoviay (1 Chron. ili. 15, 16). 
The omission is not, with Ebrard, to be explained from the circumstance 
that under Joakim the land passed under the sway of a foreign power (2 
Kings xxiv. 4), and that consequently the theocratic regal right became ex- 
tinct (against this arbitrary view, see on ver. 8) ; but merely from a confu- 
sion between the two similar names, which, at the same time, contributed 
to the omission of one of them. This clearly appears from the circumstance 
that, indeed, several brothers of Joakim are mentioned (three, see 1 Chron. 
ili. 15), but not of Jechoniah, Zedekiah is, indeed, designated in 2 Chron. 


c=) 


1 Kiithner, IT. p. 520. 

2 Comp. Hectoris Andromache, 
Katharina, and the like. See Kiihner, II. 
p. 285f. Winer, p. 178 [E. T. p. 237]. 

3 2 Kings viii. 24; 1 Chron. iii. 11; 2 Chron. 
SRM Ay MeeVee 

41Chron. viii. 1; Gen. xlvi. 21. 
enhusius, BiBA. katadd. p. 97. Lightfoot, 
for. p. 181. On the same phenomenon in 


8 Amongst the edilions this interpolation 
has beén received into the text by Colinaeus, 
Hi. Stephens, and Er. Schmidt, also by Beza 
(1st and 2d) ; by Castalio in his translation. 
It has been defended by Rinck, Lucub. crit. 
p. 245 f.; Ewald assumes that ver. 11 origi- 
nally ran: "Iwolas 5é éyévy. T. Iwaxips kat Tous 
abeApots avtov: Iwakip. 6€ éyevy. Tov leyoviav 
é€mt THs meTotK. Baf. The present form of 


Luther's 


See Sur- 


the Book of Enoch, see Ewald in the Kieler 
Monatschrift, 1852, p. 520 f. 

5 So already some of the Fathers, Maldo- 
natus, Spanheim, Lightfoot. 


the text may be an old error of the copyists, 
occasioned by the similarity of the two 
names. 


40 THE GOSPEL OF MATTHEW. 


xxxvi. 10 as the brother of the latter (and in 1 Chron. iii. 16 as his son), but 
was his wnele (2 Kings xxiv. 17; Jer. xxxvii. 1). That our genealogy, 
however, followed the (erroneous) * statement in 2 Chron. xxxvi. 10, is not 
to be assumed on account of the plural rove adeAgobc, which rather points to 
1 Chron. ii. 15 and the interchange with Joiakim. It is quite in an arbi- 
trary manner, finally, that Kuinoel has assigned to the words kai . . . abrod 
their place only after ZeiabinA, and Fritzsche has even entirely deleted them 
as spurious. — éxi ric wetouk. BaBvAdvoc| during (not about the time, Luther 
and others) the migration.?, The statement, however, is inexact, as Jecho- 
niah was carried away along with others (2 Kings xxiv. 15). The genitive 
Bava. is used in the sense of cic BaBviadva.® 

Ver. 12. Mera... petox.| After the migration had taken place.* Not to be 
translated ‘‘ during the exile” (Krebs, Kypke), which is quite opposed to the 
language,— perouxecia] change of abode, migration ; consequently here, ‘‘ the 
being carried away to Babylon,” not the sojourn in the exile itself, which 
would lead to an erroneous view of the yerd.° — Larabina] he is called in 
Luke iii. 27 a son of Neri and a grandson of Melchi ; a variation which, 
like many others in both genealogies, is to be acknowledged, and not put 
aside by the assumption of several individuals of the same name, by the pre- 
supposing of levirate relationships (Hug, Ebrard), or arbitrary attempts of 
any other kind. 1 Chron. iii. 17. When, however, in Jer. xxii. 30 the 
father of Sealthiel is prophetically designated as “YY, the prophet him- 
self explains this in the sense that none of his descendants will sit upon the 
throne of David.* Moreover, according to 1 Chron. iii. 19, Pedaiah is 
wanting here between Salathiel and Zerubbabel. Yet Zerubbabel is else- 
where also called the son of Salathiel (Ezra iii. 2, v. 2; Hag. i. 1; Luke iii. 
27), where, however, 1 Chron. iii. 19 is to be regarded as a more exact state- 
ment.” Observe, moreover, that also according to 1 Chron. iii. both men 
belong to the Solomonic line. 

Ver. 18. None of the members of the genealogy after Zerubbabel, whose 
son Abiud is not named in 1 Chron, iii. 19 f. along with the others, occurs 
in the O. T. The family of David had already fallen into a humble posi- 
tion. But even after the exile, the preservation and, relatively, the restora- 
tion of the genealogies remained a subject of national, especially priestly, 
concern.* This concern could not but be only all the more lively and ac- 
tive in reference to the house of David, with which the expectation of the 
Messiah was always connected. 

Ver. 16. "Iaxo8 . . . ’Iwo#] In Luke iii. 24, Joseph is called a son of 


1 See Bertheanu, p. 430. 

2 See Bernhardy, p. 246; Kiithner, Il. p. 
430. 

3 Comp. Eurip. Jph. 7. 1073: yas matpaeas 
vootos. Matt. x. 5: odds é@vav; iy. 15, al. 
Winer, p. 176 [E. T. p. 234]. 

41 Chron. ili. 16; 2 Kings xiv. 8; Joseph. 
Antt. x. 9. 

>The above meaning is yielded by the 
Hebrew 7943, 1 Chron. y. 22; Ezek. xii. 11; 


2 Kings xxiv. 16; Nah. iii. 10. Comp. the 
LXX. Anthol. 7. 781 (Leon. Tar. 79). The 
usual word in the classics is petouxyjots 
(Plato, Legg. 8, p. 850 A), also perotxtopos 
(Plutarch. Popl. 22). 

6 Comp. Paulus in loc., Hitzig on Jerem. l.c. 
The Talmudists are more subtle, see Light- 
foot in loc. 

7 See Bertheau. ; 

® Comp. Joseph. c. Apion. 


CHARS Tavt(, 4] 


Eli. This variation, also, cannot be set aside. As in the case of most 
great men who have sprung from an obscure origin, so also in the case of 
Jesus, the ancestors of no reputation were forgotten, and were given by 
tradition in varying form. The view, however,’ that Luke gives the 
genealogy of Mary, and consequently that in Luke iii. 24 Joseph is entered 
as son-in-law of Eli, or Eli as maternal grandfather of Jesus,? is just as base- 
less and harmonistically forced an invention as that of Augustine ;° or of 
Wetstein, Delitzsch, that Joseph was the adopted son of Eli; or that of 
Julius Africanus in Eusebius i. 7, that Matthew gives the proper father of 
Joseph, while Luke gives his legal father according to the law of Levirate 
marriage (Hug), or conversely (Schleiermacher, after Ambrose and others). 
The contradictions which our genealogy presents to that of Luke are to be 
impartially recognized. See amore minute consideration of this in Luke after 
ch. iii. — It is well known that the Jews* call Jesus the son of Pandira® or 
Panthera.®° — avdp a] is to be rendered husband, and not (Olshausen, after 
Theophylact, Grotius) betrothed. For when the genealogist wrote, Joseph 
had been long ago the husband of Mary ; and the signification of avfp is 
never that of sponsus. — é= jc] see on Gal. iv. 4. — 6 Acyéduevoc Xpiordc] if the 
assumption of Storr,’ that this addition expresses the doubt of the gene- 
alogist, an unbelieving relative of Jesus, is a pure imagination, and com- 
pletely opposed to the standpoint of the evangelist, who adopted the 
genealogy, still we are not to say, with Olshausen,® that 2éyec0a: here means 
to be called, and also actually to be. This would be to confuse it improperly 
with kadciodu.* The genealogical source, which found a reception in our 
Matthew, narrates in a purely historical manner : who bears the name of 
Christ (iv. 18, x. 2, xxvii. 17) ; for this name, which became His from the 
official designation, was the distinctive name of this Jesus.” 

Ver. 17. This contains the remark of the evangelist in accordance with 
(oiv) this genealogical tree, contained in vv. 2-16. The key to the calcula- 
tion, according to which the thrice-recurring fourteen links are to be 
enumerated, lies in vv. 11,12. According to ver. 11, Josiah begat Jechoniah 
at the time of the migration to Babylon ; consequently Jechoniah must be 
included in the terminus ad quem, which is designated by éwe ri¢ petocKeciac 
BaBvadvos in ver. 17. The same Jechoniah, however, must just as neces- 
sarily again begin the third division, as the same begins with a7é rij¢ perou- 


1 Epiphanius, Luther, Calovius in answer 
to Grotius, Bengel, Rosenmiiller, Paulus, 
Gratz, Hofmann, Olshausen, Ebrard, Lange, 
Arnoldi, Bisping, Auberlen. 

2 Spauheim, Wieseler, Riggenbach in the 
Stud. u. Kritik. 1855, p. 585 ff., Krafft. 

8 de consen. €v. ii. 3. 

4 The Talmud, and in Origen, c. Celsum, i. 
82. 

S19. Epiphanius, Haeres. 78. 7, thus 
(Ilav@np) terms the father of Joseph. John 
of Damascus, de fide Orthodox. iv. 15, re- 
moves this name still further back in the 
roll of ancestors. The Jewish book, Zole- 


doth Jeschu, calls the father of Jesus, Joseph 
Pandira. See Kisenmenger, p. 105; Paulus, 
exegel. Handb. I. p. 156 f., Thilo, Cod. apocr. 
Top: o26:f. 

6 See Paulus, exeget. Handb. I. p. 290; 
Nitzsch in the Stud. u. Kvritik. 1840, 1: Keim, 
Leben Jesu, I. p. 868; Ewald, Gesch. Christi, 
p- 187, ed. 3. 

7 Zweck d. evangel. Gesch. u. d. Briefe Joh. 
p. 273. 

8 Comp. 
Schmidt. 

® See Winer, p. 571 [E. T. 769]. 

10 Comp., besides, Remark 3, after ver. 17. 


Gersdorf, and already Er. 


42 THE GOSPEL OF MATTHEW. 


keciac BaBvAdvoc. Jechoniah, however, who was himself begotten at the time 
of the migration, did not become a father until after the migration (ver. 12), 
so that he therefore belonged as begotten to the period éwe rij¢ petoux. BaBva., 
but as a father to the period aro ric pero. BaBva., standing in his relation 
to the epoch of the petorxecia as a twofold person. It is not so with David, 
as the latter, like every other except Jechoniah, is only named, but not 
brought into connection with an epoch-making event in the history, in 
relation to which he might appear as son and father in a twofold per- 
sonality. He has therefore no right to be counted twice. According to 
this view, the three tesseradecades are to be thus divided, — 

I. 1. Abraham; 2. Isaac; 3. Jacob; 4. Judah; 5. Perez; 6. Hezron ; 
7. Ram, 8. Aminadab,; 9. Naasson; 10, Salma; 11. Boaz; 12. Obed ; 
18. Jesse ; 14. David. 

II. 1. Solomon; 2. Rehoboam; 3. Abijah; 4. Asa; 5. Jehoshaphat ; 
6. Joram; 7. Uzziah ; 8. Jotham; 9. Ahaz; 10. Hezekiah ; 11. Manasseh ; 
12. Ammon ; 13. Josiah ; 14. Jechoniah (éxi ric petoixeciac, ver. 11). 

III. 1. Jechoniah (wera ri perouxeciav, ver. 12); 2. Salathiel ; 3. Zerubbabel; 
4, Abiud ; 5. Eliakim ; 6. Azor; 7. Zadok ; 8. Achim; 9. Eliud ; 10. Hlea- 
ear ; 11. Matthan ; 12. Jacob ; 18. Joseph ; 14. Jesus. 

In the third division we have to notice that in any case Jesus also must be 
counted, because ver. 17 says wc tov Xpiorov, in keeping with ver. 1, where 
"Inoovc Xpior6¢ is announced as the subject of the genealogy, and consequent- 
ly as the last of the entire list. If Jesus were not included in the enumera- 
tion, we should then have a genealogy of Joseph, and the final terminus 
must have been said to be éw¢ ’Iwo#. Certainly, according to our Gospel, 
no proper yeved existed between Joseph and Jesus, a circumstance which in 
reality takes away from the entire genealogical tree its character as a gen- 
ealogy of Jesus in the proper sense. The genealogist himself, however, 
guards so definitely against every misinterpretation by the words rd» avdpa 
Mapiac, é& 7 éyevvfOn Incovc, that we distinctly see that he means to carry 
the descent of Jesus beyond Joseph back to David and Abraham, only in so 
far as Joseph, being husband of the mother of Jesus, was His father, merely 
putatively so indeed, but by the marriage his father in the eye of the law, 
although not his real parent. After all this, we are neither, with Olearius, 
Bengel, Fritzsche, de Wette (who is followed by Strauss,” Delitzsch, Bleek, 
and others, to divide thus : (1) Abraham to David, (2) David to Josiah, (8) 
Jechoniah to Christ ; nor, with Storr,’ Rosenmiiller, Kuinoel, Olshausen : 
(1) Abraham to David, (2) David to Josiah, (3) Josiah to Joseph ; nor are 
we to say, with Paulus, that among the unknown links, vv. 18-16, one has 
fallen out owing to the copyists ; nor, with Jerome, Gusset, Wolf, Gratz, 
to make Jechoniah in ver. 11 into Joiakim, by the insertion of which Ewald 


1 Comp. Strauss, 2d ed.; Hug, Gutachten ; Jechoniah twice; so also Schegg ; substan- 
Wieseler in the Stud. u. Kritik. 1845, p. 377 ; tially also Chrysostom, Theophylact, Euth. 
Kostlin, Urspr. d. synopt. Hvang. p. 30; Hil- Zigabenus, who only express themselves: 
genfeld, Hvang. p. 46; also Riggenbach in awkwardly in saying that the time of the 
the Stud. u. Kritik. 1856, p. 580 f.. Leb. Jes. Eile is placed év ra€ex yeveas. 

p. 261. So early as Augustine, and at a la- 2 4th ed., I. p. 139. 
ter date, Jansen and several others, count 3 Diss. in libror. hist. N. T. loca, p. 1 ff. 


CHAP. I., 17. 43 


completes (see on ver. 11) the second tesseradecade, without counting David 
twice ; nor, with Ebrard, Lange, Krafft, to insert Mary as an intermediate 
link between Joseph and Jesus, by whose marriage with Joseph, Jesus be- 
came heir to the theocratic throne. The latter is erroneous on this account, 
that it contradicts the text, which does not speak of succession to the theo- 
cratic throne, but of yeveai, the condition of which is éyévvyce and éyevv46y. 
— We must assume that the reason jor the division into three tesseradecades 
was not merely to aid the memory,’ which is not sufficient to explain the em- 
phatic and solemn prominence given to the equal number of links in the 
three periods, ver. 17 ; nor even the Cadbalistic number of the name David,? 
as it is not David, but Jesus, that is in question ; nor a reminiscence of the 
forty-two encampments in the wilderness,* which would be quite arbitrary 
and foreign to the subject ; nor a requirement to the reader to seek out the 
theocratic references concealed in the genealogy (Ebrard), in doing which 
Matthew would, without any reason, have proposed the proper design of 
his genealogical tree as a mere riddle, and by his use of éyévvyce would have 
made the solution itself impossible : but that precisely from Abraham to 
David fourteen links appeared, which led the author to find fourteen links 
for the two other periods aiso, in which, according to Jewish idiosyncrasy, 
he saw something special, which contained a mystic allusion to the system- 
atic course of divine leading in the Messiah’s genealogy, where perhaps also 
the attraction of holiness in the number seven (the double of which was 
yielded by the first period) came into play.‘ It is altogether arbitrary, 
however, because there is no allusion to it in Matthew, when Delitzsch ° ex- 
plains the symmetry of the three tesseradecades from this, that Matthew al- 
ways makes a generation from Abraham to David amount to eighty years, but 
each of the following to forty, and consequently has calculated 1120 + 560 
+ 560 years. To do so is incorrect, because yeveai receives its designation 
from éyévyyjce, it being presupposed that yevead denotes a generation. 


Remark 1. —It is clear from tdoau that the evangelist supposed that he 
had the genealogical tree complete, and consequently was not aware of the im- 
portant omissions. 

Remark 2.—Whether Mary also was descended from David, as Justin,® and 
other Fathers, as well as the Apocrypha of the N. T.,7 already teach,* is a point 


and the eyes of Zedekiah were torn out.” 
See also Gen. v. 3 ff., xi. 10 ff., where, from 
Adam to Noah, and from Noah to Abra- 


1 Michaelis, Eichhorn, Kuinoel, Fritzsche. 
2), te. 14; so Surenhusius, Ammon, 
Leben Jesu, I. p. 173. 


3 Origen, Luther, Gfrérer, Philo, II. p. 
429, after Num. xxxiii. 

4 Comp. Synops. Soh. p. 182. 18: ‘‘ Ab .Ab- 
rahamo usque ad Salom. quindecim sunt gen- 
erationes, atque tune luna fuit in plenilunio, 
a Salomone usque ad Zedekiam iterum sunt 
quindecim generationes, et tune luna defecit, 
et Zedekiae effossi sunt oculi,” ‘ from Abra- 
ham to Solomon are fifteen generations, 
and then the moon was at its full; from 
Solomon to Zedekiah are again fifteen gen- 
erations, and then the moon was eclipsed 


ham, ten links in each case are counted. 

5 In Rudelbach and Guericke’s Zettschrifé, 
1850, p. 587 ff. 

6 Dial. c. Tryph. xxiii. 45. 100, Irenaeus, iii. 
21. 5, Julius Africanus, ap. Husebium, i. 7, 
Tertullian. 

7 e.g. Protev. Jacobi. 10, de nativ. Mariae. 

8 In the Testament of the Twelve Patri- 
archs, on the other hand, the tribe of Levi 
is definitely alluded to as that to which 
Mary belonged. See pp. 542, 546, 654, 689. 
In another passage, p. 724, she is represent- 


44 THE GOSPEL OF MATTHEW. 


upon which any evidence from the N. T. is entirely wanting, as the genealogical 
tree in Luke is not that of Mary. Norcanaconclusion be drawn to that effect, as 
is done by the Greek Fathers, from the Davidic descent of Joseph ; for even if 
Mary had been an heiress, which, however, cannot at all be established (comp. 
on Luke ii. 5), this would be quite a matter of indifference so far as her de- 
scent is concerned, since the law in Num, xxxvi. 6 only forbade such daughters 
to marry into another tribe! The Davidic descent of Mary would follow from 
passages such as those in Acts ii, 30, Rom. i. 3, 4, 2 Tim. ii. 8, comp. Heb. 
vii. 14, if we were certain that the view of the supernatural generation of Jesus 
lay at the basis of these ; Luke i. 27, 32, 69 prove nothing, and Luke ii. 4 just 
as little ;? we might rather infer from Lukei. 36 that Mary belonged to the 
tribe of Levi. The Davidic descent of Jesus, however, is established as certain 
by the predictions of the prophets, which, in reference to so essential a mark 
of the Messiah, could not remain without fulfilment, as well as by the unani- 
mous testimony of the N. T.,? and is also confirmed by Hegesippus,‘ according 
to whom, grandsons of Jude, the Lord’s brother, were brought, as descendants 
of David (d¢ é« yévoug é6vtac Aavid), before Domitian. To doubt this descent of 
Jesus, and to regard it rather as a hypothesis which, as an abstraction deduced 
from the conception of Messiah, had attached itself to the Messianic predicate 
Son of David,* is the more unhistorical, that Jesus Himself lays down that de- 
scent as a necessary condition of Messiahship.® 

Remark 3.—As the evangelist relates the divine generation of Jesus, he was 
therefore far removed from the need of constructing a genealogy of Joseph, and 
accordingly we must suppose that the genealogy was found and adopted by him." 
Add to this that, as clearly appears from Luke, various genealogical trees must 
have been in existence, at the foundation of which, however, had originally § 
lain the view of a natural yéveowg of Jesus, although the expression of such a 


ed as a descendant of Judah. Comp. on 
Luke i. 86, and see Thilo, ad Cod. apocr. p. 
375. Ewald’s remark, that the Protevang 
Jacoli leaves the tribe of Mary undetermin- 
ed, is incorrect, ch. x. b. In Thilo, p. 212, 
it is said: ore Mapa éx dudAqs AaBid éotr, 
“Mary is of the tribe of David.”’ 

1 Ewald, Alterth. p. 289 f. [E. T. p. 208], 
Saalschtitz, 1. FR. p. 829 f., and in later 
times was no longer observed; see De- 
litzsch, Z.c. p. 582. 

2 In answer to Wieseler, Beitr. z. Wrirdig. 
der Hvang. p. 144. 

SHROM: 1. S52) Lime. 6° Heb: vil. 14): 
John vii. 41; Rev. v. 5, xxii. 16. 

4 In Eusebius iii. 20. 

5Comp. Schleiermacher, Strauss, B. 
Bauer, Weiss, Schenkel, Holtzmann, Hich- 
thal. 

§ See on Matt. xxii. 42 ff.; besides Keim, 
Gesch. Jesu, I. p. 326 ff., also Weiss, Didi. 
Theolog. § 18, and Ewald, Gesch. Chr. p. 242 
ff. ed, 3. 

7 Harduin, Paulus, Olshausen, and most 
moderns, but was not his own composition 
(older view, de Wette, Delitzsch). 

®It must be admitted that the genealo- 


gies owe their origin to the view that 
Joseph’s paternal relation was real, and 
that their original purpose bore that Joseph 
was the actual, and not merely the puta- 
tive, father of Jesus, because otherwise the 
composition of a genealogical tree of 
Joseph would have been without any 
motive of faith. But we must also grant 
that the evangelists, so early as the time 
when they composed their works, found the 
genealogies with the definite statements 
announcing the putative paternal relation- 
ship, and by that very circumstance saw it 
adapted for reception without any contra- 
diction to their belief in the divine genera- 
tion of Jesus. They saw in it a demonstra- 
tion of the Davidie descent of Jesus accord- 
ing to the male line of succession, so far as 
it was possible and allowable to give such in 
the deficiency of a human father, that is, 
back beyond the reputed father. The cir- 
cumstance, however, that Joseph recog- 
nized Jesus asa lawful son, presented to 
him in a miraculous manner, although he 
was not his jlesh and blood (Delitasch and 
others), assuredly leads, in like manner, 
only to a yevea which is not real. 


CHAP. I., 18. 45 


view had already disappeared from them, so that Matt. i. 16 no longer ran 
"Twono dé éyévenoev “Inoodv, and in Luke ili. 23, we évouifero was already inter- 
polated. Such anti-Ebionitic alterations in the last link of the current genea- 
logical registers of Jesus are not to be ascribed, first, to the evangelists them- 
selves (Strauss, Schenkel) ; nor is the alteration in question which occurs in 
Matthew to be derived from a supposed redactor who dealt freely with a funda- 
mental gospel document of a Judaistic kind (Hilgenfeld). The expression 6 
Aeyoumevocg Xpioro¢ in ver. 16 rather betrays that the genealogical written 
source passed over into the Gospel in the shape in which it already existed ; 
neither the author nor an editor would have written 6 Aeyéuevoc (comp. vv. 1, 
18), or, had they made an alteration in ver. 16, they would not have allowed it 
to remain. 


Ver. 18. Tod "Ijoot Xpiorov] provided with the article, and placed first 
with reference to ver. 16. ‘‘ The origin of Jesus Christ, however, was as 
follows.” — uvyorevfeicnc] On the construction.’ On the betrothal, after 
which the bride still remained in the house of her parents without any 
closer intercourse with the bridegroom until she was brought home.? — yap] 
explicative, namely* — piv 7] belongs as much as the simple zpiv to the 
Ionic, and to the middle age of the Attic dialect ;* it is, however, already 
found alone in Xenophon,® as also in Thucydides, v. 61. 1, according to our 
texts (see, however, Kriiger in loc.), but is foreign to the Attic poets. 
With the aorist infinitive, it denotes that the act is fully accomplished.*— 
ovvebciv| Chrysostom, Theophylact, Euth. Zigabenus, Erasmus, Maldonatus, 
Jansen, Bengel, Elsner, Loesner, and others understand it of cohabitation in 
marriage. The usage of the language is not opposed to this.’ Just as.cor- 
rect, however, in a linguistic point of view (Kypke, Odss. p. 1 f.), and at the 
same time more appropriate to the reference to vv. 20, 24, is the explanation 
of others® of the bringing home and of domestic intercourse. Others® combine 
both explanations. But the author in the present case did not conceive the 
cohabitation in marriage to be connected with the bringing home, sce ver. 
25. — eipétm] Huth. Zigabenus (comp. Chrysostom and Theophylact) appro- 
priately renders it : é¢avy. EipéOn d& elxe did 7d axpoaddxnrov, ‘* was seen, or 
appeared ; but he said was found, on account of its being a thing unex- 
pected.” Eipefjvac is nowhere equivalent to elvar.°—év yaorpi éyew or 
gépew, to be pregnant, very often in the LXX., also in Greek writers," — 
éx xv. dy.] without the article? TN) 199 or TA) WIP MN, rreiua, mv. 


1See Buttmann, newt. Gram. p. 270 f. 
[E. T. 315]. 

2See Maimonides, Jract. NWN; Saal- 
schiitz, Jf 2. p. 728 ff.; Keil, Archaeol. § 109. 

®See Klotz, ad Devar. p. 234 ff.; Baeum- 
lein, Partik. p. 86 ff. 

4See Elmsley, ad Hur. Med. 179; Reisig, 
ad Soph. Oed. Colon. 36. 

§ Kiihner, a@ Anab. iv. 5.1. 

® Klotz, ad Devar. p. 726. Comp. Acts ii. 
20, vii. 2; Mark xiv. 80; John iy. 49; Tob. 
xiv. 15. 


7See the passages of Philo in Loesner, 
Obss. p. 2; Joseph. Antt. vii. 9.5; Diodorus 
Siculus, iii. 57, Vest. XZ. Pats. pp. 600, 701. 

8 Luther, Beza, Er. Schmid, Lightfoot, 
Grotius, Kypke, Kuinoel, Fritzsche, de 
Wette, Arnoldi, Bleek. 

® Calyin, Wetstein, Rosenmiiller, Olshau- 
sen. 

10 See Winer, p. 572 [E. T. 769]. 

1) Herodotus, iii. 82, Vit. Hom. ii.; Plato, 
Legg. vii. p. 792 E. 

12 See Winer, p. 116 [E. T. 151]. 


46 THE GOSPEL OF MATTHEW. 


aytov, Tv. Tov Ocod, is the personal divine principle of the higher, religious-moral, 

and eternal life, which works effectually for the true reign of God, and espe- 

cially for Christianity, which rules in believers, and sanctifies them for the: 
Messiah’s kingdom, and which, in reference to the intellect, is the knowl- 

edge of divine truth, revelation, prophecy, etc., in reference to morals is 
the consecration of holiness and power in the moral life of the new birth - 
with its virtues and world-subduing dispositions, bringing about, in partic- 
ular, the truth and fervor of prayer, the pledge of everlasting life. Here 
the zvedua ayvov is that which produces the human existence of Christ, through 
whose action—which so appeared only in this, the single case of its kind— 
the origin of the embryo in the womb of Mary was causally produced (éx) 
in opposition to human generation, so that the latter is thereby excluded. 
It is not, however, that divine power of the Spirit (Luke i. 35), which only 
concurs in the action of human generation and makes it effectual, as in the 
generation of Isaac and of the Baptist, and, as the idea is expressed in the 
Sohar Gen.’ — éx mvevy. ay., moreover, is added, not as an object to ebpéAy, 
but from the historical standpoint, to secure at once a correct judgment 
upon the év yaorpi éyovca.* 


Remarx.—As regards the conception of Jesus by a virgin, we have to notice the 
following points in their exegetical bearing :—(1) Mary was either a daughter 
of David (the common view), or she was not. See on ver. 17, Remark 2. In 
the first case, Jesus, whose divine generation is assumed, was, as Matthew and 
Luke relate, a descendant of David, although not through an unbroken line of 
male succession, but in such a way that His mother alone conveyed to Him the 
Davidic descent. But if Mary were nof a daughter of David, then, by the 
divine conception, the possibility of Jesus being a descendant of David is 
simply excluded; because, on that view, the Davidite Joseph remains out of 
consideration, and this would be in contradiction not only with the statements 
of prophecy, but also with the unanimous testimony of the N. T. (2) As it is 
nowhere said or hinted in the N. T. that Mary was a descendant of David, we 
must assume that this is tacitly presupposed in the narratives of Matthew and 
Luke. But as a consequence of this supposition, the genealogical trees would 
lose all their importance, in so far as they are said to prove that Jesus was vid¢ 
Aaveid (ver. 1). Joseph’s descent from David, upon which in reality nothing 
would turn, would be particularly pointed out ; while Mary’s similar descent, 
upon which everything would depend, would remain unmentioned as being a 
matter of course, and would not be, even once, incidentally alluded to in what 
follows, say by Ovydrnp Aaveid, as Joseph is at once addressed in ver. 20 as vidc¢ 


1Comp. Schmidt in the Bidl. f. Kit. v. 
Hxeg: ad. N. T.1.p.101: ** Omnes alli, qui 
sciunt se sanctificare in hoc mundo, ut par est 
(ubi generant), attrahunt super id Spiritum 
sanctitatis et exeuntes ab eo illi vocantur filit 
Jehovae,”’ ‘* All those who know to con- 
secrate themselves in this world, as is pro- 
per (when they beget), draw uponit the 
spirit of holiness, and going forth from it 
these are called sons of Jehovah.” Theo- 
dore of Mopsuestia (apud Fred. Fritzsche, 


Theodori BMops. in N. T. Conumentar. p. 2): 
@omep yap (TO TEVA TO ayLov) KoLYwYdV éeaTL 
TarTpi TE Kal VL@ Els THY TOV TaYTos SnmLovpylav, 
oUTwW Kal TO €K THS Tapdevov ToD 
THTHPOS TOha KaTegKEevace, “For as 
(the Holy Spirit) is a partner to both the 
Father and the Son for the creating of every- 
thing, so also He prepared the body of the 
Saviour from the Virgin.” 
2 eOepamevce Tov Aoyov, Euth, Zigabenus. 


CHAP. I., 18. 4” 


Aaveid. (3) Paul and Peter! designate the descent of Jesus from David in such 
a way, that without calling in the histories of the birth in the first and third 
Gospels, there is no occasion for deriving the Davidie descent from the mother, 
to the interruption of the male line of succession, for which Gal. iv. 4? also 
affords neither cause nor justification. Nowhere, moreover, where Paul speaks 
of the sending of the Son of God, and of His human yet sinless nature,’ does he 
betray any indication that he presupposes that divine conception. (4) Just 
as little does John, whose expression 6 Adyoc caps éyéveto, although he was so 
intimate with Jesus and His mother, leaves the question as to the how of this 
éyévero without a direct answer, indeed ; but also, where Jesus is definitely 
designated by others as Joseph’s son, contributes no word of correction®’—nay, 
relates the self-designation ‘‘ Son of a man” from Jesus’ own mouth (see on 
John y. 27), where the context does not allow us to refer adv§parov to his mother. 
(5) It is certain, further, that neither in Nazareth ® nor in Capernaum (John vi. 
42), nor elsewhere in the neighborhood (John i. 46), do we meet with such 
expressions, in which a knowledge of anything extraordinary in the descent of 
Jesus might be recognized ; and in keeping with this also is the unbelief of 
His own brethren (John vii. 3),—mnay, even the behavior and bearing of Mary.’ 
(6) We have still to observe, that what is related in ver. 18 would obviously: 
have greatly helped to support the suspicion and reproach of illegitimate birth, 
and yet nowhere throughout the N. T. is there found the slightest whisper of so 
hostile a report.* If, moreover, in the narratives of the first and third evangel- 
ists, angelic appearances occur, which, according to the connection of the his- 
tory, mutually exclude each other,*—namely, in Matthew, after the conception, 
in order to give an explanation to Joseph; in Luke, before the conception, to 
make a disclosure to Mary,—nevertheless that divine conception itself might 
remain, and in and of itself be consistent therewith, if it were elsewhere cer- 
tainly attested in the N. T., or if it could be demonstrated as being an un- 


doubted presupposition, belonging to the conception of Christ as the Son of 
God. 


1 Rom. i. 3, 4; Acts ii. 30: é« omépyatos, éx above sinful humanity; for which rea- 


Kaptrov THs Oapvos ; Comp. 2 Tim. iil. 8. 

2 Certainly, in Rom. i. 4, Paul expressly 
refers Christ’s relation to God as His Son to 
His mvedvua aywovrvys not to His capé. See 
on Rom. i. 8. The supernatural generation 


is not a logical consequence of his system, 


as Weiss, bibl. Theol. p. 315, thinks. If Paul 
had conceived the propagation of sin as 
taking place by means of generation (which 
is probable, although he has not declared 
himself upon the point), he cannot, in so 
thinking, —after the history of the fall (2 
Cor. xi. 3), and after Ps li. 7,—have regard- 
ed the woman’s share as a matter of in- 
difference. 

32Cor. v. 21; Rom. viii. 83 Phil. ii. 6 f. 

4 We should all the more have expected 
this origin to have been stated by Paul, that 
he, on the one side, everywhere ascribes to 
Christ true and perfect humanity (Rom. v. 
15; 1 Cor. xv. 21, a/.), and, on the other, so 
often gives prominence to His elevation 


son he also designates the oapé of Christ— 
which was human, and yet was not, as in 
other men, the seat of sin—as ophoiwpa 
gapkos apaptias (Rom. viii. 3), with which 
Heb. ii. 14, 17 also agrees. 

54, 46, vi. 42; comp. vii. 27, 

6 Matt. xiii. 55; Mark vi. 3; Luke iv. 22. 

™Mark iii. 21, 831; comp. on Matt. xii. 
46-50 ; see also Luke ii. 50 f. 

8 The generation (nay, according to Luke 
ii. 5, the birth also) before the marriage was 
concluded is necessarily connected with 
faith in the divine generation. The reproach 
of illegitimate birth was not raised by the 
Jews until a later time (Origen, ec. Celswin, i. 
28), as a hostile and base inference from the 
narratives of Matthew and Luke. Thilo, 
ad Cod. Apocr. I. p. 526 f. They called Jesus 
a Mamser [i.e. one born in incest]. See 
Eisenmenger, “ntdeckt. Judenth. I. p. 105 fé. 

9 Strauss, I. p. 165 ff. ; Keim, Gesch. Jesu, 
I. p. 362 ff. 


48 THE GOSPEL OF MATTHEW. 


Taking into account all that precedes, it is clear, in the first place, that the 
doctrine which became dominant in the church, in opposition to all Ebionitism, 
of the birth of Jesus Christ from a virgin, is indeed fully justified on exegetical 
grounds by the preliminary history in Matthew and Luke ; but that, secondly, 
apart from the preliminary history, no glimpse of this doctrine appears any- 
where in the N. T.,—nay, that elsewhere in the N. T. it has to encounter con- 
siderable difficulties of an exegetical kind, without, however, breaking down 
before physiological or theological impossibilities (in answer to Strauss). Ex- 
egetically, therefore, the proposition of faith, that in Jesus the only-begotten 
Son of God entered as man into humanity, cannot be made to depend upon the 
conception, which is recorded only in Matthew and Luke,! but must also, irre- 
spective of the latter, remain fast and immutable in its full and real meaning 
of the incarnation of the divine Logos, which took place, and takes place, inno 
other ; so that that belief cannot be made to depend on the manner in which 
Jesus was conceived, and in which the Spirit of God acted at the very com- 
mencement of His human existence. And this not merely for exegetical, but 
also for dogmatical reasons, since the incarnation of the Son of God is by no 
means to be subjected to the rule of universal sinful origin (John iii. 6) in fallen 
humanity (by which His whole redemptive work would be reduced to nothing); 
and which indeed must also—considering the supernatural conception—be con- 
ceived as exempted on the mother’s side from this rule of traducianism.? 


Ver. 19. ’Avfp] Although only her betrothed, yet, from the standpoint of 
the writers, designated as her Husband. The common assumption of a pro- 
leptic designation (Gen. xxix. 21) is therefore unfounded. It is different 
with ray yuvaixd cov in ver. 20. — dixatoc] not : aeguus et benignus.* For dixazoc, 
like P'S, means generally, he who is as he ought to be;* therefore rightly con- 


1 The comparison with heathen rap9evoy- 
eveis, called map#evioc. in Homer, such as 
Buddha, Zoroaster, Pythagoras, Plato, Rom- 
ulus (see the literature in Hase, Leb. Jesi, 
§ 27 a), should have been here left entirely 
out of consideration,—partly becanse they 
belong, for the most part, to an entirely 
foreign sphere of life, have no analogies in 
the N. T., and amount to apotheoses ex even- 
tw (Origen, ¢c. Celsum, i. 87); partly because 
so many of the wap@évior are only the fruits 
of the lust of the gods (see Homer, J/ias, 
xvi. 180 ff.). Far too much weight has been 
attached to them, and far too much has 
been transferred to them from the Christian 
idea of the Son of God, when the thought 
is found expressed in them that nothing can 
come forth by the way of natural genera- 
tion which would correspond to the ideal 
of the human mind, Olshausen, Neander, 
Krabbe, Schmid, did/. Theol. I. p. 43 ; Dollin- 
ger, Heidenth. u. Judenth. p. 256. 

2 Comp. Schleiermacher, Christl. Glaube, 
§ 97, p. 64 ff., and Leben Jesu, p. 60 ff. Too 
much isasserted, when (see also Gess, Pers. 
Christ. p. 218 f.) the limitation is imposed 
upon the divine counsel and will, that the 


freedom of Jesus from original sin must 
necessarily presuppose the divine concep- 
tion in the womb of the Virgin. The incar- 
nation of the Logos is, once for all, a mys- 
tery of a peculiar kind; the fact is as 
certain and clear of itself as the manner in 
which it took place by way of human birth 
is veiledin mystery, and is in no way deter- 
minable @ priort. This is also in answer to 
Philippi’s assertion (Dogmatik. IV. 1, p. 
158, ed. 2), that the idea of the God-man 
stands or falls with that of the birth from a 
virgin,—a dangerous but erroneous dilem- 
ma. Dangerous, because Mary was not 
free from original sin ; erroneous, because 
God could also have brought about the in- 
carnation of the Logos without original sin 
in some other way than by a birth froma 
virgin. 

3 So (after Chrysostom and Jerome) Euth. 
Zigabenus (ca thy mpadtyTa Kal ayabwovryy), 
Luther, Grotius, Kuinoel, Fritzsche, B. Cru- 
sius, Bleek. 

4 Hermann, ad Soph. Ajac. 543; Kiihner, 
ad Xen. Memor. iv. 4.5; Gesen. Thes. III. p. 
1151. 


CHAP, I., 20. 49 


stituted, and, in a narrower sense, just, but never kind, although kindness, 
compassion, and the like may be in given cases the concrete form in which 
the drcacocivy expresses itself. Here, according to the context, it denotes 
the man who acts in a strictly legal manner. Aixatoc down to devypyatioa con- 
tains two concurring motives. Joseph was an upright man according to the 
law, and could not therefore make up his mind to retain Mary, as she was 
pregnant without him ; at the same time he could not bring himself to 
abandon her publicly ; he therefore resolved to adopt the middle way, and 
dismiss her secretly. Observe the emphasis of Ad6pa. — devyyarica| to expose ; 
see on Col. ii. 15. Here the meaning is: to expose to public shame. This, 
however, does not refer to the punishment of stoning (Deut. xxii. 23), which 
was to be inflicted ; nor toa judicial accusation generally (the common view), 
because devyaticas must mean a kind of dismissal opposed to that denoted 
by Adbpa ; comp. de Wette. Therefore: he did not wish to compromise 
her, which would have been the result had he given her a letter of divorce, 
and thus dismissed her davepic. — 140pa] secretly, in private, i.e. by means of a 
secret, private interview, without a letter of divorce. This would, indeed, 
have been in opposition to the law in Deut. xxiv. 1, which applied also to 
betrothed persons ;' but he saw himself liable to a collision between the two 
cases, —of either, in these circumstances, retaining the bride, or of exposing 
her to public censure by a formal dismissal ; and from this no more legal 
way of escape presented itself than that on which he might with the more 
propriety lay hold, that the law itself in Deut. l.c. speaks only of married 
persons, not of betrothed. De Wette thinks, indeed, of dismissal by a letter 
of divorcement, but under arrangements providing for secrecy. But the letter 
of divorce of itself, as it was a public document,’ is in contradiction with 
the Aafpa. —On the distinction between 6éA0 and otvAoua:,—the former of 
which expresses willing in general, the action of the will, of the inclina- 
tion, of desire, etc., in general ; while Botsouwa denotes a carefully weighed 
self-determination.* Observe the aorist éB0v244n : he adopted the resolution. 
Ver. 20. ‘Idot] as in Hebrew and in Greek writers, directs attention 
quickly to an object brought into view. Very frequent in Matthew. — kar’ 
dvap] in somnis.* Frequent in later Greek, but not in the LXX. and Apocry- 
pha ; rejected by Photius, p. 149. 25, as BapBapov ; amongst the old writers, 
commonly only évap.° «ard serves to designate the manner and way, and 





yields the adverbial meaning in a dream, bic dveipov év TO brvw, Herod. 1. 
38. The appearance of the angel was an appearance in a dream.° It might 
denote the time, if,’ xara rove irvove, or ka? ixvov (Gen. xx. 6), had been 
employed. Express visions in dreams in the N. T. are related only by Mat- 
thew.*— vid¢ A.] The reason of this address ° is not difficult to see (de Wette) ; 
it is highly natural in the case of the angel, because he has to bring news 


1 Maimonides, Tact. NIW'N, c. 1; Wet- 4Vulg., Virg. Aen. ii. 270; €v ovetpors, 
stein iz loc. ; Philo, de leg. spec. p. 788. Niceph. Schol. in Synes. p. 442. 

2 See Saalschiiltz, J. 2. p. 800 ff. ; Ewald, 5 See Phrynichus, ed Lobeck, p. 423 f. 
Alterth. p. 272 [E. T. p. 203 ff.]. 6 See Kiihner, IT. 1, p. 413. 

3 See Buttmann, Zezil. I. p. 26 ff. [E. T., 7 As in Joseph. Antig. xi. 9. 3. 
Fishlake, p. 194 ff.], partly corrected by ® Comp. besides, Acts ii. 17. 


Ellendt, Zea. Soph. I. p. 316. ® Nominative, see Kihner, II. 1, p. 43. 


a 


50 THE GOSPEL OF MATTHEW. 


of the Messiah. B.-Crusius says too little : Joseph is so addressed as one 
favored by God, or, as he for whom something miraculous was quite appro- 
priate. Fritzsche says too much: ‘‘ut ad Mariam ducendam promtiorem 
redderet,” ‘‘to render him more ready to take Mary as his wife.” The 
former neglects the special connection, the latter imports a meaning. — 
Tv yvvaika cov] apposition to Mapidu: the Mary, who is thy wife: in 
which proleptic designation there lies an element stating the cause. This 
view (in answer to Fritzsche, who explains : Mary, as thy wife) is required 
by ver. 24. —év airg] not for 2& aityc, but also not to be translated, with 
Fritzsche : per eam, as év with persons is never merely instrumental, and 
as the context (ver. 18 : év yaorpi éyovoa éx. rv. dy.) demands a different ren- 
dering ; but, quite literally, in wtero Mariae, that which has been begot- 
ten in her.—The neuter places the embryo still under the impersonal, mate- 
rial point of view.’ — éx rv. éotiv ayiov] proceeds from the Holy Ghost as au- 
thor, by whom, accordingly, your suspicions are removed. Observe the 
emphatic position, which lays the determining emphasis upon rvebyaroc, in op- 
position to sexual intercourse. Upon the distinction between évOvueicha 
with the genitive (rationem habere alic. rei) and the accusative (‘* when he had 
considered this’), see Kiihner.? 

Ver. 21. Té&era dé] and she will bear. ‘‘ Non additur tii, ut additur de 
Zacharia, Luc. i. 18,” ‘‘It is not added to thee, as it is added concerning 
Zachariah,” Bengel. — Ka2décewe . . . "Inoovr] literally : thou wilt call His 
name ‘‘ Jesus.”* Exactly so in Hebrew : 12W-n8 8p). The Greeks, how- 
ever, would say : xadécere 70 d6voua airov (or also atte) ‘Iycovv.* — xarécerc] the 
future serves in classical writers to denote the softened idea of the impera- 
tive.’ In the LXX. and in the N. T. it is especially used of divine injunc- 
tions, and denotes thereby the imperative sense apodeictically, because it sup- 
poses the undoubted certainty of the result.© So also here, where a divine 
command is issued. When Fritzsche would here retain the proper concep- 
tion of the future, it becomes a mere prediction, less appropriate in the con- 
nection ; for it is less in keeping with the design of the angelic annunciation, 
according to which the bestowal and interpretation of the name Jesus is 
referred to a divine causality, and consequently the genus of the name itself 
must, most naturally, appear as commanded. — aitéc¢| He and no other. — tiv 
Zadv abrov| The people of Israel : because for these first, and then also for the 
heathen, was the Messiah and His work intended, John iv. 22; Rom. i. 16 ; 
Gal. iii. 14. As certainly, moreover, as the manner and fashion in which 
the promised one was to accomplish the salvation, and by means of His re- 
demptive work has accomplished it, is to be conceived as being present to 
the eye of God at the sending of this news, as certainly must Joseph be con- 
ceived as regarding it only in its national definiteness, consequently as re- 
ferring to the theocratic liberation and prosperity of the people (comp. Luke 


1 Comp., first, ver. 21: ré€erar 6€ vidv. See Matt. i. 28, 25; Luke i. 13, 31, ii. 21. 


Wetstein, and on Luke i. 35. 4 Matthiae, p. 935 [E. T., Kenrick, p. 675 
2 Ad Xen. Memorabilia, i. 1. 17; Kriiger on ff.] ; Heindorf, ad Plat. Phaedr. p. 238 A. 
Thucyd. i. 42. 1. 5 Bernhardy, p. 878; Kiihner, II. 1, p. 149. 


3 Comp. LXX. Gen. xvii. 19; 1 Sam. i. 20; ®8 Comp. Winer, p. 296 [E. T. 396 f.]. 


Or 
= 


CHAP, T., 22, 23. 


i. 68 ff.), along with which, however, the religious and moral renewal also 
was regarded as necessary ; which renewal must have presupposed the an- 
tecedent forgiveness of sin (Luke i. 77). duaprtiv, therefore, is to be taken, 
not as punishment of sin, but, as always, simply as sins. —airoi, not to be 
written airov (for the angel speaks of Him as a third person, and without 
any antithesis): His people, for they belong to the Messiah.’ 

Vv. 22, 23. No longer the words of the angel (in answer to Chrysostom, 
Theophylact, Euth. Zigabenus, Paulus, Arnoldi), but of the evangelist, who 
continues his historical narrative, and that with a pragmatic observation, 
which serves to advance his object. Comp. xxi. 4, xxvi. 56 — iva is never 
éxBattxdv, so that (Kuinoel and older interpreters), but always redcKév, ii 
order that ; it presupposes here that what was done stood in the connection 
of purpose with the O. T. declaration, and consequently in the connection 
of the divine necessity, as an actual fact, by which the prophecy was des- 
tined to be fulfilled. The divine decree, expressed in the latter, must be ac- 
complished, and to that end, this, namely, which is related from ver. 18 
onwards, came to pass, and that according to the whole of its contents (bor). 
The prophecy itself is Isa. vii. 14 according to the LXX., without any es- 
sential variation. — 7 zapfévoc corresponds here to myn, which denotes an 
unmarried young woman of nubile years, not also a young woman (for which 
Prov. xxx. 19 is erroneously appealed to by Gesenius and Knobel).* On 
the other hand, mana means virgin in the strict sense of the word. The 
evangelist, nevertheless, interpreting the passage according to its Messianic 
destination, understands the pregnant Mary as areal virgin. Here we have 
to observe that such interpretations of O. T. passages are not to be referred 
to any principle of accommodation to the views of the time, nor even to a 
mere occasional application, but express the typical reference, and there- 
with the prophetic meaning, which the N. T. writers actwally recognized in 
the relative passages of the O. T. And in so doing, the nearest, i.e., the his- 
torical meaning of these passages in and of itself, did not rule the interpre- 
tation, but the concrete Messianic contents according to their historical 
definiteness a posteriori—from their actual fulfilment—yielded themselves to 
them as that which the Spirit of God in the prophecies had had in view as 
the ideal theocratic subject-matter of the forms which they assumed in the 
history of the time.* The act by which they saw them Messianically ful- 
filled, i.e. their Messianic contents become an accomplished fact, was recog- 
nized by them as lying in the purpose of God, when the declaration in 
question was spoken or written, and therefore as ‘‘eventum non modo 
talem, qui propter veritatem divinam non potuerit non subsequi ineunte N. T.,” 
‘Not merely such an event as, on account of divine veracity, could not 
but follow at the entering in of the New Covenant,” Bengel. This Mes- 
sianic method of understanding the O. T. in the New, which they adopted, 
had its justification not merely in the historically necessary connection in 
which the N. T. writers stood to the popular method of viewing the O. T. 


1 Comp. John i. 11; on the plural airér, 3 Comp. Riehm in the Stud. u. Kritik. 1869, 
see Buttmann, nevt. Gr. p. 114 [E. T. 130]. p. 272 f. (E. T., Clark, Edin. 1876, p. 160 ff.]. 
2 See Hengstenberg, Christol. II. p. 53 ff. 


52 THE GOSPEL OF MATTHEW. 


in their day, and to its typological freedom of exposition, but as it had its 
justification also generally in the truth that the idea of the Messiah pervades 
the whole of the prophecies of the O. T., and is historically realized in 
Christ ; so also, in particular, in the holy guidance of the Spirit, under 
which they, especially the apostles, were able to recognize, both as a whole 
as well as in details, the relation of prophecy to its N. T. fulfilment, and 
consequently the preformations of Christian facts and doctrines, as 
God, in conformity with His plan of salvation, had caused them to take a 
beginning in the O. T., although this result was marked by varying degrees 
of certainty and of clearness of typological tact among the individual 
writers. Although, according to this view, the N. T. declarations regard- 
ing the fulfilment of prophecies are to be presupposed as generally having 
accuracy and truth on their side, nevertheless the possibility of erroneous 
and utenable applications in individual instances, in accordance with the her- 
meneutical license of that age, is thereby so little excluded, that an unpre- 
judiced examination upon the basis of the original historical sense is always 
requisite. This way of estimating those declarations, as it does justice on 
the one side to their importance and ethical nature, so on the other it erects 
the necessary barrier against all arbitrary typological hankering, which 
seeks to find a connection between prophecy and fulfilment, between type 
and antitype, where the N. T. has not attested the existence of such.* In 
reference to types and prophecies generally, we must certainly say with the 
N. T.: rotre rdvtec oi tpooyrat waptupovow x.7.A., Acts x. 43, but not with 
the Rabbins : ‘‘Omnes prophetae in universum non prophetarunt nisi de 
diebus Messiae,” ‘‘ All the prophets universally prophesied only concerning 
the days of the Messiah,” Sanhedrin, f. 99,1. As regards Isa. vii. 14,” 
the historical sense is to the effect that the prophet, by his promise of a 
sign, desires to prevent Ahaz from begging the aid of the Assyrians against 
the confederated Syrians and Ephraimites. The promise itself does not 
indeed refer directly, by means of an ‘‘ ideal anticipation,” to Mary and 
Jesus (Hengstenberg), but neither also to the wife of the prophet,* nor to any 
other mother elsewhere of an ordinary child,* but to the mother—who at 
the time when the prophecy was uttered was still a virgin—of the expected 
theocratic Saviour, 7.e., the Messiah,° the idea of whom lives in the prophetic 


1 Comp. also Diisterdieck, de ret prophet. 
natura ethica, Gottingen 1852, p. 79 ff. 

2 Comp. H. Schultz, alttest. Theolog. TI. p. 
244 ff.; Engelhardt in the Luther. Zeitschrift. 
1872, p. 601 ff. 

3 Gesenius, Knobel, Olshausen, Keim, 
Schenkel, and others; comp. also Tholuck, 
das A. T.in N. T. p. 48, ed. 6. 

4 Stahelin, H. Schultz. 

5 Hofmann has corrected his earlier ex- 
planation (Weissagung und Frfiillung, I. p. 
221) in point of grammar (Schrifibeweis, II. 
1, p. 85), but not in accordance with the 
meaning. He sees in the son of the virgin 
mother the Jsrae which does not arise in the 
way of a natural continuation of the present, 


but in a miraculous manner, to which God 
again turns in mercy. In the person of 
Jesus this Israel of the future of salvation 
takes its beginning; while that which in 
Isaiah was figurative language, is now re- 
alized in the proper sense. With greater 
weight and clearness Kahnis (Dogmatih, I. 
p. 345 f.) remarks: The Virgin and Imman- 
uel are definite but ideal persons. The lat- 
teris the Israel of the future according to 
its ideal side; the Virgin, the Israel of the 
present and of the past according to its 
ideal side, in accordance with which its 
vocation is, by virtue of the Spirit of God, 
to give birth to the holy seed; this Israel 
will one day come to its true realization in 


CHAP: f.,) 24,25. 53 


consciousness, but has attained its complete historic realization in Jesus 
Christ."| That we might, however, from the consideration of the fulfilment 
of the prophetic oracle, accomplished in the birth of Jesus from a virgin, 
find in the word 79y the mother of the Messiah designated as a virgin, 
follows, as a matter of course, from the meaning of D7, which by no 
means excludes the idea of virginity, and was not first rendered possible by 
the rapévoc of the LX X., by means of the ‘‘ subtleties of Jewish Christians” 
(Keim), and this all the less that even rap6évoc also in Greek does not always 
denote virgin in the strict sense, but also ‘‘nuptas et devirginatas.”? Mat- 
thew might also just as well have made use of vedvic, which Aquila, Theo- 
dotion, and Symmachus employ. — On the article, Bengel appropriately re- 
marks: ‘‘ex specula divinae praescientiae singularem demonstrandi vim 
habet,” ‘‘from the height of divine foreknowledge it has a singular power 
of demonstrating (pointing out);” she who is present to the prophet’s eye is 
intended. — kadécovor] they will call. The LXX. incorrectly gives xarécerc. 
The evangelist generalizes the third person singular of the original Hebrew 
into the plural. — ’EyuavovyA | ON DY, God is with us, which symbolical 
name, according to the historical sense in the prophet, derives its signifi- 
cance from the saving by divine help from the destruction threatened by the 
war in question, but, according to its Messianic fulfilment, which the evan- 
gelist now sees beginning, has the same essential meaning as the name Jesus. 
The xaréoovor 7d dvoua avtov ’Eupavovg?, corresponds to the karécere rd bvou. 
avtov Ijcovv (ver, 21), and therefore the translator of the Gospel has added 
the interpretation of the significant name. The Fathers of the church 
(Hilary, Chrysostom, Theodoret, Lactantius), and expositors like Calvin, 
Flacius, Maldonatus, Jansen, Schege, interpreted it of the divine nature in 
Christ. In the divine nature of the Lord as the Son of God is found the 
divine help and safety, which make up the meaning of the name (Jerome), 
its dogmatic foundation in the developed Christian consciousness, as the 
latter is certainly to be assumed in the evangelists Matthew (ver. 20) and 
Luke (i. 35), according to whom, as a consequence of the superhuman gen- 
eration, the superhuman character, not merely the Messianic vocation, is to 
come forth. 

Ver. 24. Ard rod ivov] from the sleep in which he had had the vision.— «ai 
mapéA.| The course of the thought proceeds simply, without any participial 
construction, by means of the epexegetic and. 

Ver. 25. ’Eyivwoxev] He had no sexual intercourse with her (imperfect). In 


a virgin, who will be the mother of the 
Messiah. Substantially similar also is the 
view of W. Schultz in the Stud. u. Kritik. 
1861, p. 713 ff., who understands by the Vir- 
gin the quiet ones in the land, the better 
portion of the community who are truly sus- 
ceptible of the working of the Lord. But the 
whole style of expression, and the connec- 
tion in the context farther on, are through- 
out not of such a character that in the Vir- 
gin and her son, ideal, and indeed collective 
persons, should have been present, first of 


all, to the prophet’s view. I must continue, 
even after the objections of Hengstenberg, 
Tholuck, W. Schultz, H. Schultz, and others, 
to regard Ewald’s view as the right one. 

1 See especially Ewald on J/saiah, p. 339 f., 
ed. 2; Umbreit in the Stud. u. Kritik. 1855, 
p. 573 ff. ; Bertheau inthe Jahrb. f. Deutsche 
Theologie, 1859, 4; Drechsler on Jsaiah, l.c. } 
Delitzsch; Oehler in Herzog’s Hncykil. IX. 
p. 415; Engelhardt, 7. c. 

2 See Ellendt, Lew. Soph. II. p. 210. 


54 THE GOSPEL OF MATTHEW. 


this sense )'T is used by the Hebrews, and y.vécxewv by the Greeks of a later 
age (often in Plutarch) ; also the Latin novi and cognosco.’ Since Epiphanius, 
Jerome, Chrysostom, Theophylact, Luther, Calvin, very many exposi- 
tors have maintained, with a view to support the perpetual virginity of 
Mary, but in opposition to the straightforward and impartial character of 
the narrative, that Joseph, even after the birth of Jesus, had no sexual in- 
tercourse with Mary.?— But (1) from éw¢ oi of itself no inference can be 
drawn either in favor of or against such a view, as in all statements with 
‘‘until” the conteat alone must decide whether, with regard to that which 
had not formerly occurred, it is or is not intended to convey that it after- 
wards took place. But (2) that it is here conceived as subsequently taking 
place, is so clear of itself to every unprejudiced reader from the idea of the 
marriage arrangement, that Matthew must have expressed the thought, ‘‘ not 
only until—but afterwards also he had not,” if sach had been his meaning. 
That he did not, however, mean this is clearly shown (3) by his use of 
mpwrdéroxov, Which is neither equivalent to xpéro¢ Kai pdvoc (Theophylact, 
Euth. Zigabenus), nor does it designate the first-born, without assuming 
others born afterwards (so formerly most expositors). The latter meaning 
is untenable, because the evangelist employed zpwréroxov as an historian, 
from the standpoint of the time when his Gospel was composed, and conse- 
quently could not have used it had Jesus been present to his historical con- 
sciousness as the only son of Mary. But Jesus, according to Matthew (xii. 
46 ff., xiii. 55 f.), had also brothers and sisters, amongst whom He was the 
Jirst-born.® (4) All @ priori suppositions are untenable, from which the per- 
petual virginity of Mary is said to appear;* of Olshausen : ‘‘it is manifest 
that Joseph, after such experiences, might with good reason believe that his 
marriage with Mary was intended for another purpose than that of beget- 
ting children.” Hofmann has the correct meaning.°—éxd/ece] is not to be 
referred to Mary, so that éw¢ ov érexe . kai éxaaece Would be taken to- 
gether, as Paulus, after some older interpreters, maintains, but to Joseph, 
as is certain after ver. 21; comp. Grotius. 


1 Justin, v. 2, xxvii. 3; Ovid. Meta. iv. 594; 
comp. Caesar, de bello Gallico, vi. 21: feminae 
notitiam habuisse). See Wetstein and Kypke. 

2 As a logical consequence of this suppo- 
sition, Joseph was made to be a worn-out 
old man (Thilo, ad cod. Apocr. I. p. 361; 
Keim, Gesch. Jes. I. p. 365), and his children 
were regarded either as children of a for- 
mer marriage (Origen, Epiphanius, and 
many other Fathers), or the brothers of 
Jesus were transformed into cousins (Je- 
rome), Of any advanced age in the case of 
Joseph there is no trace in the N. T. In 
John vi. 42, the Jews express themselves in 
such a way that Joseph might be conceived 
as still alive at the time. 

3 Lucian’s remark (Demonax, 29), speaking 
of Agathocles, is correct : «i wév mpaTos, ov 


p-Ovos: el OE mOvos, OV TpwTOs. 

4 Such as that of Euth. Zigabenus: was ay 
eTeXeipngEv, Kat OAws evebvp.nOy yvavar THY 
ovAdaBovoarv ex mvEvaTos aylov Kal ToLOUTOY 
Soxetov yeyernuevnv ; ““how could he at- 
tempt, or even for a moment think, to 
know (carnally) her who was pregnant by 
the Holy Ghost and become a receiver of 
such precious treasure ?”’ 

5 Schriftbeweis, Il. 2, p. 405; so also 
Thiersch, Wieseler, Bleek, Ewald, Laurent, 
neut. Stud. p. 153 ff., Schenkel, Keim, Kahnis, 
I. p. 426 f. Comp. on the passage before us, 
Diogenes Laertius, iii. 22, where itis said of 
Plato’s father: 00ev kaOapav yanov dvAdéar 
€ws THS amoKungews ; Sec also Wetstein ; Pau- 
lus, exeget. Handb. I. p. 168 f, ; Strauss, I. p. 
209 ff. 


Or 
Or 


NOTE. 


Note By AmERIcAN EpIror. 


i 


Dr. Meyer’s view of Matthew’s genealogical table is noticed in the Preface, 
page xy., et seg., Which see. 


56 THE GOSPEL OF MATTHEW. 


CHAPTER If 


Ver. 8. axpi3. téerdoare] According to B C* D 8, 1, 21, 33, 82, 124, 209, Copt. 
Sahid. It. Vulg. Syr. p. Eus. Aug., we must read éferaoate axpiBoc, with Lachm. 
and Tisch. — Ver. 9. go77] BC D 8, 33, 209, Or. Eus. read éora97. So Lachm. 
and Tisch., of the nature of a gloss ; for the more precise definition of the con- 
ception in the passive, as in xxvii. 11, in almost the same manuscripts. — Ver. 
11. eidov] Elz. : eipov, against decisive testimony. — Ver. 13. gaiverar Kart’ dvap] 
CK II, Curss. Theophyl.: xar’ dvap gaiwveva, B: So Lachm. 
Latter reading is derived from i. 20, which passage also led to the ka7’ 6vap 
being placed first. The Received reading is therefore here to be retained, and 
ver. 19, after B D Z &, Curss. Verss., to be changed into gaiverar kat’ évap 
(with Lachm. and Tisch.). — Ver. 17. izo] BC D Z 8, Curss. Verss. Chrys. Jer. 
read dia. Corresponds to the standing style of quotation in Matth., therefore 
rightly approved (comp. on ili. 3) by Griesbach and Schultz, after Gersdorf ; 
adopted by Lachm. and Tisch. — Ver. 18. Opyvoc x. kAavOudc] BZ &, 1, 22, Verss. 
and Latin Fathers have merely kiav§udc. So Lachm. and Tisch. The Re- 
ceived reading is an extension from that of the LXX. — Ver. 21. 7A0ev] BC §: 
eionAgev. So Lachm. and Tisch. 8, correctly: the compound was easily 
neglected. — Ver. 22. évi] is wanting in B &, Curss. Eus. Deleted by Lachm. 
and Tisch. 8. But it was all the more easily omitted as unnecessary, because 
the syllable EI preceded it. 


kat’ 6vap gary. 


The genuineness of the whole of the first and second chapters has been controverted, 
or at least suspected, by Williams,’ by Stroth,? Ammon,* J. Jones.4 In answer 
to Williams, Flemming wrote a work,®> and Velthusen ;° in answer to Stroth, 
Henke,’ to Hess, Rau. Amongst the defenders are Griesbach,? Schubert,?° 
Kuinoel," Fritzsche,’ Muller.!2 Amongst the writers of Introduction, Eichhorn 
and Bertholdt have gone over to the side of the opponents. — Both chapters are 
genuine — that is, they were integral portions of the Hebrew Gospel writing, of 
which our Matthew is the translation, and consequently belonged to the latter 
fromthe very beginning. For (1) all the Codices and Versions contain them, the 


1A Free Inquiry into the Authenticity of 
the First and Second Chapters of St. Mat- 
thew’s Gospel, Lond. 1771, enlarged, 1790. 

2 Hichhorn’s Repert. IX. p. 99 ff.; Hess, 
Biblioth. d. heil. Gesch. I. p. 208 ff. 

3 Diss. de Luca emendatore Matthaei, Erl. 
1805. 

4 Sequel to Heclesiastical Researches, etc., 
Lond. 1813. 

5 Free Thoughts upon a Free Inquiry, etc., 
Lond. 1771. 

6 The Authenticity of the First and Second 
Chapters, ete., Lond. 1771. 


7 de ev. Matth. integritate, etc., Helmst. 
1782. 

8 Symbola ad quaestionem de authentia, ete., 
1793. 

® Epimetron ad Comment. crit. in Matth. 
II. p. 47 ff. 

10 deinfantiae J.C. historiae authentia atque 
indole, Gripeswald 1815. 

11 Proleg. § 6. 

12 Commentar. Eacurs. Il. 

13 7b. d. Aechth. der ersten Kapitel des 
Evang. nach Matth., Trier 1880. 


GHAR. IIs: 57 


Fathers of the second and third centuries! also quote passages fromm them, and 
Celsus has made reference to them ;? (2) their contents are highly appropriate 
to the beginning of a gospel writing composed for Jewish Christians ; (3) the 
beginning of ch. ili. is connected with ii. 23, where the residence of Jesus at 
Nazareth is mentioned ; iv. 13 also manifestly refers to ii. 23. The construc- 
tion and style of expression are in keeping with the character of the whole 
Gospel.* — The main argument of those who oppose the genuineness is, that 
our chapters were wanting in the Gospel of the Ebionites (Epiph. Haer. xxx. 18). 
But on a correct estimate of the Gospel secundwm Hebraeos in its relation to 
the Gospel of Matthew, that counter argument can be of no weight (see Intro- 
duction, § 2) ; and, in accordance with Ebionitic views, it is very conceivable 
that they did not admit the miraculous preliminary history, and made their 
Gospel (according to Epiphanius), in keeping with the original gospel type, 
begin at once with the appearance of the Baptist.4 As, moreover, the gene- 
alogy contained in ch. i. implies the use of a piece of writing already in exist- 
ence, so also the legendary character of both chapters in general,—and the 
certainly peculiar manner in which the third chapter is connected with them, 
which, amid all its literal connection with what has preceded it, passes over 
the whole history of the youth of Jesus,—appear to point to this, that the por- 
tions composing both chapters were originally special gospel documents. Ch. i. 1-16 
appears to have been one such document by itself, then vy. 18-25 a second, and 
ch. ii. a third, in which are now found for the first time the locality and time 
of the birth of Jesus. The unity of the Greek style of expression with that in 
the other parts of the Gdspel is not opposed to this,® but is to be explained 
from the unity of the translator. How much, however, considering the free 
style of quoting Old Testament passages, is to be set down to the account of 
the first author of these documents, or to that of the Hebrew editor of the 
Gospel, or to the translator, cannot be determined. 


Ver. 1.° Tevvy6évroc] The star is to be considered as appearing contempo- 
raneously with the birth (ver. 7). But how long it was after the birth when the 
Magi came, is ascertained approximately from ver. 16, according to which, 
even taking into account all the cruelty of Herod, and his intention to go to 
work with thorough certainty, the arrival of the Magi is most probably to be 
placed somewhat more than a year after the birth. [See note I, p. 71.] 


1 Trenaeus, iii. 9. 2 f., Clement of Alexan- 
dria, and others. 

2 Orig. c. Ceéls. 1. 28, ii. 82. 

3See Griesbach, Hpimetr. p. 57; Gers- 
dorf, Beitr. p. 38 ff.; Credner,’I. p. 62 ff.; 
Fritzsche, /.c. p. 850 ff. 

4Jtis also related of Tatian (Theodoret, 
Haeret. fab. i. 20) : ras re yeveadoyias mepixowas 
kal Ta GAAa, boa ek oréepuatos AaBid kata oapKa 
yeyevunwevov Tov Kvptov deckvucry, “He mu- 
tilated the genealogies and the rest which 
show that the Lord was begotten of the 
seed of David according to the flesh.” But 
Tatian was a disciple of Docetism, and his 
treatment was determined by dogmatic 
considerations. 


5 Ewald, Bleek, Holtzmann. 

® See on the history of the Magi, Thilo, 
Eusebii Emeseni oratio repi actpovopnev prae- 
missa de magis et stella quaestione, Wal. 1835 ; 
Miinter, Stern der Weisen, 1827; Roth (Cath- 
olic), de stella a magis conspecta, 1865. In ref- 
erence to chronology based upon astronom- 
ical observation, Ideler, Handb. a. Chro- 
nol. II. p. 339 ff.; Anger in the Zettschr. f. 
histor. Theol. 1847, p. 3847 ff.; Wieseler, 
chronol. Synopse u. Beitrdge 2. Wiirdigung 
d. Evang., 1869, p. 149 ff.; also in Herzog’s 
Encykl. XX1. p. 548 f.; Seyffarth, Chronol. 
sacr. 1846; Weigl, wb. d. wahre Geburts- u. 
Sterbejahr. J. Chr. 1., Sulzbach 1849 ; Keim, 
Gesch. J.J. p. 375 ff. 


58 ' THE GOSPEL OF MATTHEW. 


—0dé is continuative, leading on to another history connected with the birth 
of Jesus which has just been related.— ByOAeéu (house of bread) rH ’Iovdaiag 
to distinguish it from Bethlehem in the tribe of Zabulon, Josh. xix. 15. 
Our village,’ designated in John vii. 42 as xéuy, was situated in the tribe of 
Judah (Judg. xvii. 9, xix. 1; 1 Sam. xvii. 12), six miles to the south of Je- 
rusalem, now the little manufacturing town Beit lachm.’—év jjuépac] "D'S, 
Gen. xxvi. 1; 2 Sam. xxi. 1; 1 Kings x. 21.— ‘Hpédov] Herod the Great, 
son of Antipater, received in the year 714 v. c. from the Senate the dignity 
of king through the influence of Antony, by whom he had been not long 
before made tetrarch, but first came into the actual possession of his king- 
dom after the capture of Jerusalem by himself and Sosius in the year 717, 
and died, after a brilliant and flagitious reign, in 750.*— yayor] The Magi 
(D°1) constituted, amongst the Persians and the Medes, of whom they 
_ formed, according to Herod. i. 101, one of the six tribes, a distinguished 
priestly caste, and occupied themselves principally with the knowledge of 
the secrets of nature, astrology, and medicine.* Amongst the Babylonians 
also (Jer. xxxix. 3) there was, at the time when the Chaldean dynasty was 
in power, such an order, of which Daniel became the president (Dan. ii. 
48). The name of Magi was then generally transferred, without distinction 
of country, to all those who had devoted themselves to those sciences, 
which, however, were frequently also accompanied with the practices of 
magic and jugglery (Acts viii. 9, xiii. 6, 8).°— axd avar.] belongs to pdyor, 
Magi from the East—that is, Oriental Magi. The position of the words 
most naturally suggests this connection ; but the article (oi a7é avaz.) is not 
required, because payor is without the article (in answer to Fritzsche, who 
connects it with xapeyévovro). The indefinite expression, eastern lands (viii. 
11, xxiv. 27 ; Luke xiii. 29 ; Rev. xxi. 13), is to be left in its indefinite- 
ness, and in so doing we are to assume that the evangelist himself had no 
more precise information at his command. If Arabia has been thought of ° 
or Persia® or Parthia® or Babylonia ® or even Egypt,’ yet we have no sure 
hold, even in aslight degree, either in the very indefinite avatozov, or in the 
nature of the presentsin ver. 11. It was entirely baseless to determine their 
number from the threefold gifts, and to regard them as kings" on account of 


1 Bethlehem Ephrata, Gen. xxxy. 16, 19. 
2 See Robinson, Pal. II, p. 379 ff.; Tobler, 


6 Justin. ¢. Tr. 77 f.; Epiphanius, Tertul- 


lian, Maldonatus, Jansen, Cornelius A 


Bethl. in Paldst. 1849, and the relative arti- 
cles in Herzog and Schenkel. 

3 See concerning the whole family of 
Herod, Schlosser, Gesch. d. Fam. Herodes, 
Lpz. 1818; Ewald, Gesch. d. Volks Isr. 1V., 
and (esch. Chr. p. 95 ff. ed. 3; Gerlach in 
the Luther. Zeitschr. 1869, p. 13 ff.; Haus- 
rath, neut. Zeitgesch. I. and II. 

4 Herod. i. 32; Xen. Cyr. viii. 3.6; Diog. 
Laert. i. 1-9; Aelian. V. H. ii. 17; Porphyry, 
de abst. an. iv. 16; Cie. de div. i. 41; Plin. 
NE HEAVY: (29) XX. 2" Cuntaiina ns. 

5 See Wetstein, and Miller in Herzog’s 
Encykl, VIL. p. 675 ff. 


Lapide, Grotius, Lightfoot, Michaelis, Kui- 
noel, de Wette, Wieseler. 

7 Chrysostom, Theophylact, Euth. Ziga- 
benus, Calvin, Beza, Calovius, Petavius, 
Casaubon, Wolf, Olshausen. 

8 Hydius. 

® Paulus. 

10 Moller, newe Ansichten in loc. 

11 According to Bede, their names also 
have been commonly given as Caspar, Mel- 
chior, and Balthasar (see Petr. Comestor. 
Hist. Schol. 8), but also differently. See 
Beza in loc., and Paulus, exeget. Handb. I. p. 
204. 


CHAP. II., 2. 59 


Ps. Ixviii. 80, 32, Ixxii. 10 ; Isa. xlix. 7, Ix. 3, 10 (especially since the fifth 
century ; yet Tertullian, c. Marcion, already takes this view). Are we to 
think of heathens (so most expositors, including Olshausen, Krabbe, B.-Cru- 
sius, Lange, de Wette, Ewald, Hilgenfeld, Bleek, Keim), or of Jews?* In 
favor of the first, the question, Where is the new-born King of the Jews? is 
decisive. And how appropriate was it to the idea of Messiah, that the very 
first-fruits of the distant heathen appeared to do homage to the King of the 
Jews (Isa. Ix. 3 ff.) ! The expectation of the Jews, that their Messiah was 
to rule over the world, might at that period have been sufficiently dissemi- 
nated throughout the foreign countries of the East? to lead heathen astrol- 
ogers, for the object in question, to the Jewish capital.*— ‘IepocdAvua] In the 
capital they expected to find, if not the Babe Himself, at least the most 
certain information regarding Him. ; 

Ver. 2. Tap] Reason of the question.* —airov roy aorépa] that is, the star 
which indicates Him. We are to think of a strange star, which had not pre- 
viously been seen by them, from the rising of which they had inferred the 
birth of the new King of the Jews, in accordance with their astrological 
rules. Here we must observe the emphasis on the airov, which is placed 
first, the star which refers to Him, and to no other. From the word daorfp 
(not dorpov) it is indisputably certain, ver. 8, that it is not a constellation 
which is meant. This is in answer to Kepler,’ Miinter, Ideler, Paulus, 
Neander, Olshausen (with hesitation), Krabbe, Wieseler, Ebrard, who think 
of a very close conjunction, which occurred in the year 747 v.c., of Jupiter 
and Saturn in the sign of the fishes ; where Ebrard, however, keeping more 
closely to the word aorfp, is of opinion that it is not that constellation 
itself, but the new star of the first magnitude, which Kepler saw appear in 
the year 1604 at the conjunction of Jupiter and Saturn, and again disappear 
in 1605 ; whilst Wieseler summons to his aid a comet which was observed in 
China in 750. The Jew Abarbanel in his Commentary on Daniel (1547) in- 
ferred, from a similar conjunction in the year 1463, that the birth of the 
Messiah was at hand, and indicates the sign of the fishes as that which is of 
importance for the Jews. If ver. 9, however, points only to a miraculous 
star, to one that went and stood in a miraculous manner, then it is evident 
that neither a comet (Origen, Michaelis, Rosenmiiller), nor a jived star, nor a 
planet, nor even a meteor, is what is meant, which dorfp by itself might sig- 


nify.° The Fathers of the church (in Suicer, sub aorjp) thought even of an 
angel. The glory of the star is wonderfully portrayed in Ignatius, Hph. 19 


(sun, moon, and stars, illuminated by it, surround it as a choir).?/ The uni- 
versal belief of antiquity was, that the appearance of stars denoted great 


1 y.d. Hardt, Harenberg in the Bidl. Brem. 
VII. p. 470 ff.; Miinter, Paulus, Hofmann, 
L. J. von Strauss geprift, p. 249 ; Rettig in the 
Stud. u. Krit. 1838, p. 217. 

2 Sueton. Vesp. iv.; Tac. HZ. y. 18; Joseph. 
Bide Vi. Ds 4 

3 Comp. Dio Cass. Hist. R. xlv. 1; Suet. 
Oct. xciv. 

4*“De re deque tempore ita certi sunt, ut 


tantum quaerant wdi,” ‘‘Concerning the 
Jact and the time they are so certain that 
they only ask the where,” Bengel. 

5 de J. Chr. servator. nostri vero anno nata- 
litio, 1605. 

® Schaefer, ad@ Apoll. Rh. I. p. 206. 

7 Protev. Jac. xxi. See Thilo, ad Cod. 
apocr. I. p. 390 f. 


60 THE GOSPEL OF MATTHEW. 


changes, and especially the birth of men of importance. Wetstein in loc. 
The Jews in particular believed, in accordance with the Messianic passage, 
Num. xxiv. 17, in a star of the Messiah.* — év 77 avatoaq] Several commenta- 
tors (Hammond, Paulus, Fritzsche, Ebrard, Wieseler, Ewald) translate : in 
the rising.* In this way the avaroaq corresponds to the reyéeic. And as the 
ordinary explanation, ‘‘in the Hast” (Luther), in accordance with ver. 1, 
and especially with the current usage of the word, which in the singular 
only rarely denotes the East,* would lead us to expect the plural,’ the first 
rendering is to be preferred. Comp. regarding the use of the word to de- 
note the rising of stars, Valckenaer.*— xpockvveiv] MMA, to show rev- 
erence and submission to any one by bowing down with the face toward the ground." 
To connect it with the dative (instead of the accus.) is a usage of the later 
Greek. 

Ver. 3. Herod was afraid, because he dreaded the overthrow of his throne ; 
the inhabitants of Jerusalem, however, not so much on account of the times 
of misfortune which were expected to precede the Messiah,*® but in keeping 
with their special circumstances, because they dreaded the adoption by the 
tyrant, in the maintenance of his rule, of measures hostile to the people. — 
‘Tepocédvua| Feminine form, occurring only here and in ili. 5, and without 
any various reading in the Codd. It is found also in Latin.” To take the 
name as newter, and to supply wédc," is not grammatically possible. The 
feminine form must have been in actual use, although the neuter, as in ver. 
1, and ‘Iepovcadju, were and remained the prevailing forms. 

Ver. 4. Ildvrag . . . Aaov] is regarded, after Grotius, by Fritzsche, Arnol- 
di, Lange, not asan assembly of the Sanhedrin (so commonly), but an extraor- 
dinary convocation of a// the high priests and learned men. This expla- 
nation, in which, moreover, zdyrac is not to be taken literally, is the correct 
one. Indeed, oi apyepeic kat ypaupareic, even without adding the third ele- 
ment of the Sanhedrin, the zpec8irepor, may denote the Sanhedrin (xx. 18, 
xxi. 15 ; while, on the other hand, elsewhere, as in xxvi. 47, xxvii. 1, the 
ypaupareic are not mentioned along with them). But here révrac is decisive, 
which would designedly draw attention to a full sitting of the high coun- 
cil, and therefore would have made it necessary not to omit an entire class 
of the members, but to mention in full all the three classes, asin xvi. 21, xxvil. 
41 ; rov Aaod also stands opposed to the common interpretation, as the latter, 
in designating the Sanhedrin in Matthew, serves only to denote the rpeoBirepox 
more precisely (xxi. 23, xxvi. 3, 47, xxvii. 1). Herod summoned together 


8 Ad Eur. Phoen. 506. 
7Gens xix. 1, XVili. 25 xi 6; xvii 12k 


1 See Baur, alitest. Weissag. I., 1861, p. 346 
ff 


2 Bertholdt, Christolog. Jud. p. 55 ff. 
3 Comp. Luke i. 78; Wisd. xvi. 28; 2 Macc. 
x. 28; 3 Esdr. v. 47; Plat. Polit. p. 269A; 
Loer. p. 96 D: Stob. Hel. Phys. i. 20; Poly 
bius, xi. 22. 6. 

4 As in Herodian, iii. 5. 1, ji. 8. 18. 

5 Gen. ii. 8; Judg. viii. 11; Ezek. xi. 1, 
xlvii. 8; Bar. iv. 36 f.; 8 Macc. iv. 15 ; Herod, 
iy. 8; Polyb. xi. 6. 4, ii. 14. 4. 


Herod. i. 134; Nep. Con. iii.; Curtius, v. 2, 
vi. 6. See Hoelemann, Bibelstud. I. p. 96 ff. 

8 Lobeck, ad Phryn. p. 468. 

® Lightfoot on Mark xiii. 19; Bertholdt, 
Christol. p. 45 f. 

10 Tac. Hist. v.2; Sueton. Aug. xciii. 

11 Wetstein, Grimm, Buttmann, veut. Gr. 
p. 16 [E. T. 18]. 


CHAP. II., 6. 61 


all the theologians of the nation, because he wanted a theological answer ; row 
Auod belongs to both words ; observe the non-repetition of the article after 
kai. —apyispei¢] certainly comprises partly the actual ruling high priest 
(6 apyeepede, Poarta 13, Lev. xv. 10), partly those who had formerly held 
this high official post, which very often changed hands under the Herods.? 
That the presidents of the twenty-four classes of priests are also to be under- 
stood (Bleek, Ewald), is nowhere certainly attested, and has against it the 
designation of the office itself, apyepeic. Both reasons, moreover, are in 
opposition to our including, with Wieseler, the priestly nobles, or, with 
Schiirer, the members of the at that time privileged high-priestly families,? 
which is not justified by Acts iv. 6, and cannot be proved by a few individual 
names mentioned in Josephus, whose relation to the high-priesthood is other- 
wise unknown.* The last high priests who ruled before the death of Herod 
were Matthias (5 B.c.), and Jozarus, who soon after followed him.* — ypap- 
pareic] corresponds to the Hebr. 0.7510 — that is, first writers, then learned 





men.° This was the name specially of the expositors of the divine law, who, 
as Jewish canonists and learned councillors, belonged chiefly to the sect of 
the Pharisees, and in part to the Sanhedrin, and were held in great respect. 
See Lightfoot on the passage, and on xxiii. 13.°—yevvara] not in the sense 
of the future, but purely present : whereis the Messiah born? The theologians 
were to tell what they knew concerning the birthplace of the Messiah. By 
this question Herod leaves it quite undetermined whether the birth had al- 
ready taken place, or was still to come. 

Ver. 6. In Mic. v. 1 the sense is : Although Bethlehem is too unimportant 
to be reckoned among the cities of the district, yet a ruler in Israel will come 
forth from it. In Matthew this thought is, with a slight deviation, 
changed into : Bethlehem is undoubtedly an important place, because, etc. It 
is therefore unnecessary, with Grotius, to take the passage in Micah as 
interrogative : ‘‘ Art thou, then, Bethlehem, too small,” etc., and to derive 
the turn of the thought with opdaué¢ from this interrogative interpretation 
(Hilgenfeld). But the Ruler to whom Micah alludes is none other than the 
Messianie King of David’s race (see Ewald, Proph.), so that in the birth of 
Jesus this prophecy receives its complete historical fulfilment. Comp. John 
vil. 42.—év Toic jyeudoww] "DIN, LXX. év yidudow. The Hebrew ON 
denotes the subdivision of the tribes (the thousands),’ which had their princi- 
pal places and their heads (ANDN).8 The translation by jyeudorv (Chrysos- 
tom : ¢vAdpyorc) clearly shows that either the evangelist himself had read 
the word in question not ‘DNS, but "DON, or that his translator had com- 
mitted this mistake. In the Septuagint also AION is rendered by #yenav, 
Gen. xxxvi. (hfe: ix, sve 15; 1 Chron, i. 51 f. ; Ps. lv. 14. According 
to the words as they stand in Matthew, Bethlehem, the town, appears per- 


1 See Schiirer, Stud. wu. Krit. 1872, p. 593 Thes. II. p. 966. 


ff. ®Leyrer in Herzog’s Zncykl. XII. p. 
2 Joseph. Bell. iv. 3. 6. 731 ff. 
3 Schiirer, p. 638 f. 7 See Ewald, Alterth. p. 823 f.; Keil, A7ch. 
4 Joseph. Antt. xvii. 4. 2, xvii. 6. 4. II. p. 223. 


5 Ezra vii. 6, 11; Neh. viii. 1; Gesenius, ® See Gesenius, 7hes. I. p. 106. 


62 THE GOSPEL OF MATTHEW. 


sonified in the midst of the heads of families (Ewald, ‘‘ amongst the princes 
of Judah”), amongst whom it had by no means the lowest position. 
Fritzsche conjectures raic yyexdow, in primariis familiarum in Judaea sedibus. 
But even thus the sense of IN is not yet obtained. How easily, on the 
contrary, might the evangelist or his translator derive ‘DON from AON, as 
the 7yotievog Which follows must have been before him !— y7] not city, but 
strip of land, province, which includes the same, 1 Macc. v. 68. Often like- 
wise in the tragic writers.’ — é£eAeboetar] will come forth, namely, by birth. 
Thus 8%" Gen. xvii. 6.2 — rouuavet] Comp. the Homeric roimévec Acov. In 
like manner ‘1/7 is used of rulers, 2 Sam. v. 2, vil. 7; Jer. xxiii. 2 ff. ; 
Mic. y. 3: 

Ver. 7 f. Ad@pa] Inconsistently enough, as that could only arouse sus- 
picion ; but to adopt secret measures is natural to wickedness !— The ques- 
tion after the time of the appearance [of the star] has its reason in this, 
that the mistrustful Herod already thinks of the possibility of his not see- 
ing the Magi again, and that he will then still have a hold for taking fur- 
ther proceedings against the mysterious child (ver. 16). —7xpiBooe] with 
the accusative does not mean : he investigated minutely (axpiBdw epi Tivos 
may mean this), but : after he had made them come to him secretly, he ob- 
tained from them a minute knowledge, and so on. Vulgate appropriately 
says: ‘‘ Diligenter didicit.”* But the passages where it means to make 
exact * do not apply here.® — roi darvouévov aorépoc] Grotius : ‘‘ Non initium, 
sed continuitas.” Herod asked : How long does the star appear? how long 
does it make itself visible? namely, since its rising in the east, where ye saw 
it arise (ver. 9). Thus the present is not to be taken either in the sense of 
the aorist or of the imperfect (de Wette, Bleek). — réuxpac] not contempora- 
neous with the eize (de Wette), but prior to it ; comp. xi. 2. After he had 
directed them to Bethlehem (in consequence of ver. 5 f.), he added the 
commission, etc. Otherwise it would have been éreppev . . 

Ver. 9. ’Axoboavtec tov Bacia.] After they had heard the king, they set off on 
their journey. Description of their unsuspicious behaviour. Comp. Theo- 
phylact. — kai idod, 6 aarhp, x.7.2.] They travelled by night, in accordance 
with Eastern custom.* — év eidov] The aorist in the relative sentence, where 
we use the pluperfect." — xpoyyev] is the descriptive imperfect, not praecesserat 
(Hermann, Siiskind, Paulus, Kuinoel), as if the star had again first shone 
upon them after they had come to Bethlehem. This explanation is ungram- 
matical,* and serves only to help to diminish the miraculous element, which 
is quite opposed to the character of the narrative. The common view alone 


. elTOv. 


1 See Fritzsche in loc. Comp. Seidler, ad Tavtws eyevvnOyn Kat 0 Xpiotds, “He waited, 


Eurip. Troad. iv.; Ellendt, Lex. Soph. I. p. 
361. 

2 Comp. Heb. vii. 5; 1 Mace. i. 10. 

3 Comp. Plat. Charm. p. 156 A; Xen. Mem. 
iv. 2. 10; Eur. Hec. 1192; Lucian, Jov. trag. 
27, Piscat. xx. ; Herodian, i. 11. 14. 

4 Aquila, Isa. xlix. 16 ; Simonides, Ixxxiv. ; 
Xen. Cyr. ii. 1. 26. ) 

5 Euth. Zigabenus rightly says: mpocedo- 
Knoe yap, OTL OTE oUTOS (the star) édavn, Tore 


because when this (the star) was visible, 
then surely was the Christ born.” 

6 See Hasselquist, Reise nach Paldst. p. 152. 
Bengel appropriately remarks on 
“Toto itinere non viderant stellam,”’ ‘“‘ On 
the entire journey they had not seen the 
star.” 

7See Kiihner, II. 1, p. 145; Winer, p. 258 
[E. T. 343]. 

§ Buttmann, newt. Gr. p. 173 [E. T. 200]. 


idov : 


CHAP. II., 10-12. 63 


is in keeping with the words : the star, which they had seen in its rising, 
went before them on their journey from Jerusalem to Bethlehem, and took up a 
position over the place (the house) where the child was. Amongst the Greeks 
also stars are mentioned as extraordinary guides.’— érdvw od jv] See ver. 11, 
The going and standing of the star is miraculous ; hence also 
the manner in which the particular house is indicated is left undetermined. 

Ver. 10. 'Eyapycav].*—ogddpa] Adverbs at the end.*— éydp. yap.]* 
Therefore here yapav peyadanv odddpa.® 

Ver. 11. Ei¢ tiv oixiay] As the Magi did not arrive till some time after 
the birth (ver. 1), it does not follow indeed from eic¢ 7. oix. in and by itself 
that the evangelist makes Jesus be born not in the stable of a friend (Luke), 
or in a cave (Justin and Apocrypha), but in Joseph's house. Certainly, how- 
ever, the latter follows from this, that, according to Matthew, Bethlehem 
is the dwelling-place of Joseph ; see Remark after ver. 23. — 7d raidlov pera 
Mapiac] The non-mention of Joseph is not to be ascribed to any design. — 
rove Ancarpovc] the chests which held their treasures.° To find symbolical ref- 
erences in the individual presents is arbitrary. Tertullian and Chrysostom : 
Incense and myrrh they presented to Him as to a God ; Irenacus, Origen 
(in answer to Celsus, who ridiculed the divine worship of a v/rioc), Theo- 
phylact, Euth. Zigabenus, Erasmus, Luther: as a king, they presented 
Him with gold ; as a God, with incense and with myrrh, 6¢ péAdovt yetoao- 
Oat Oavarov.” —It was and still is the Eastern custom not to approach princes 
without presents, Gen. xliii. 11.5 That the gifts of the Magi are said to 
have enabled the poor parents to make out their journey to Egypt (Wet- 
stein, Olshausen, and others), is a strange conceit. 

Ver. 12. ypnuatichévrec] Vulgate correctly renders : responso accepto: pas- 
sages in Wetstein, Kypke, Krebs, and Loesner. The question that pre- 
ceded is presupposed, Luke ii. 26; Heb. xi. 7.° The passive is found in 
this meaning only in the New Testament and in Josephus." — avaxaupae 

. avexopnoav] The latter is not : they turned back (vv. 13, 14, 22, iv. 12), 
but they withdrew, went away, made off ; dvaxdupar is ‘‘ cursum reflectere.” 


THY olKiav. 


1 Elsner, p. 5f. ; Wetstein on the passage. 

2 Euth. Zigabenus correctly says: as ev- 
povtes tov aeudéatarov odnyov: émAnpodopyé- 
noav yap AouTov, OTL Kal TO CnTOVMEVOY EVpHToVaL, 
““As having found the unerring guide ; for 
they were fully assured already that they 
will find that which was sought.” 

3 Comp. iv. 8; Schaefer, ad Demosth. V. 
p. 367; Bornemann, ad Xen. Anabd. ii. 6. 9; 
Mem. iii. 5. 17. 

4‘*Etenim ubi nomen per se ipsum verbi 
significationem neque circumscribit neque 
intendit, adminiculo opus est vel adjectivi 
vel pronominis vel articuli, quo rerum ge- 
nus certum designatur,” ‘‘ Where a noun 
by itself neither limits nor marks out the 
meaning of the verb, there is need of the 
assistance of an adjective, or pronoun, or 
article, by which the character of things is 


certainly designated,’? Lobeck, Paralip. p. 
507. 

5 Comp. Mark v. 42 6,; Wilke, newtestam. 
Rhetor. p. 880. The opposite, peyaAnv Avanv 
AvrecaGar John iv. 11; foBetaGar PoBov peéyay, 
Mark iv. 41. 

6 Xen. Anadb. v. 4. 273; 1 Mace. ili. 29; 4 
Mace. iv. 4. See Wetstein and Valckenaer, 
ad Herod. iv. 162. 

7 Comp. the Christian Adamsbuch in Ewald, 
Jahrb. V. p. 81, which makes the three gifts 
and their meaning to be derived from 
Adam. 

8{ Sam. x. 27; 1 Kings x. 2; Aelian, V. H. 
j. 31; Harmar, Beobacht. vib. d. Orient, II. p. 
hts 

9 Comp. on Acts x. 22. Bengel well says: 
‘Sic optarant vel rogarant.” . 

10 Anit. iii. 8. 8, xi. 8. 4. 


64 THE GOSPEL OF MATTHEW. 


They were not to turn back to Herod, from whom they had come hither, 
and that with the instruction, ver. 8, but were to select another way to 
their home,'-— The divine direction had for its object, that Herod should 
not at once take measures against the true Child who was pointed at. 


Remark.—The narrative regarding the Magi, as it bears in Matthew the 
stamp of real history, has its profound truth in the ideal sphere, in which the 
Messianic idea, which was afterwards set forth, realized in all its glory in the 
historical life of Jesus, surrounded the little known childhood of this lite with 
the thoughtful legends—its own creation—preserved in Matthew and Luke. 
The ideal truth of these legends lies in their corresponding relation to the mar- 
vellous greatness of the later life of the Lord and His world-embracing work; 
they are thereby very definitely distinguished from the legendary poetry, which 
assumed various shapes in the Apocryphal narratives of the infancy. Whether, 
moreover, any real fact may have lain at the basis of the narrative of the 
Magi,” and what the nature of this is, cannot be more minutely ascertained. 
Certainly Eastern astrologers may, according to the divine appointment, have 
read in the stars the birth of the Jewish Messiah, who was to be the light of 
the heathen, and with this knowledge have come to Jerusalem ; but how easily 
did the further miraculous formation of the history lay hold of the popular 
belief in the appearance of a miraculous star at the birth of the Messiah,*—a 
belief which probably had its basis in Num. xxiv. 17 compared with Isa. Ix. 1 ff.,4 
as well as in the Messianic expectation that foreign nations would bring gifts 
to the Messiah (Ps. Ixxii. ; Isa. lx.), as on other occasions, also, rich temple 
gifts had arrived from the East (Zech. vi. 9 ff.). It was easy to connect with 
this, by way of antithesis to this divine glorifying of the child, the crafty and 
murderous interference of Herod as the type of decided hostility, with which 
the ruling power of the world, necessarily and conformably to experience, entered 
with cunning and violence the lists against the manifested Messiah (Luke i. 


1 Luke x. 6; Acts xviii. 21; Heb. xi. 15; 
Herod. ii. 8; Plat. Phaed. p. 72 B; Diod. 
Sic. iii. 54. 

2 Schleiermacher, Schr. d. Lukas, p. 47, 
L. J. p. 75, assigned a symbolical character 
to the narrative. According to Bleek, the 
symbolical point of view (‘‘ the first desti- 
nies of the Christian church being, as it 
were, reflected’’) predominated at least in 
the mind of the first author; but the pref- 
erence in point of historical truth is due to 
Luke. According to de Wette, the narra- 
tives contained in ch. ii. are to be regarded 
more with a dogmatico-religious than with 
a strictly historical eye; the dangers sur- 
rounding the child Jesus are a type of the 
persecutions awaiting the Messiah and His 
church, and an imitation of the dangers 
which threatened the life of the child 
Moses, and so on. According to Weisse, 
what is set forth is the recognition which 
Christianity met with amongst the heathen, 
the hatred it experienced amongst the Jews, 
and then how it took refuge amongst the 


Hellenistsin Egypt. According to Ewald, the 
inner truth of the narrative is ‘he heavenly 
Light, and the division amongst men, on the 
other hand, into the faith of the heathen 
and the hatred of the Jews. According to 
Hilgenfeld, it is the expression of the world- 
historical importance of Jesus, and of the 
recognition which, amid the hostility of the 
Jews, He was to find precisely amongst the 
heathen. According to K6stlin, the narra- 
tive has an apologetic object, to declare 
Jesus in a miraculous manner to be BactArevs 
Tav lovbaiwy, at the basis of which, perhaps, 
was the constellation of the year 747. Ac- 
cording to Keim, it is an ideal history, the 
true form of which stands before the eyes 
of the Christians of all ages. and which pro- 
ceeded from the fundamental thought of 
the conflict of the Messiah with the pseudo- 
Messias (Herod). 

3 See Fabricius, cod pseudepigr. I. p. 584 f. ; 
Schoettgen, II. p. 531; Bertholdt, Christcl. 
§ 14, 

* Schoettgen, II. p. 151 f. 


. 


CHAP. II., 13-15. 65 5 


51 f.), but in vain. If we were to regard the whole narrative, with its details, 
as actual fact (see amongst the moderns, especially Ebrard and Gerlach), the 
matter would be very easily decided ; the difficulties also which have been 
raised against so extraordinary an astral phenomenon, both in itself and from 
the science of optics, would be authoritatively removed by means of its mirac- 
ulous nature,' but there would still remain unexplained the impolitic cunning 
and falsehood of the otherwise so sly and crafty Herod, who allows the Magi 
to depart without even a guide to make sure of his designs, and without ar- 
rangements of any other kind, his expenditure of vigilance and bloodshed, 
which was as unnecessary as it was without result, and the altogether irrecon- 
cilable contradiction between our account and the history narrated by Luke,? 
according to which the child Jesus received homage of an altogether different 
kind, and is not threatened by any sort of persecution, but at the date when 
the Magi must have arrived, had been for a long time out of Bethlehem (Luke 
li. 39). Considering the legendary character of the star phenomenon, it is not 
adapted to serve as a chronological determination of the birth of Christ, for 
which purpose it has been used, especially by Weiseler and Anger, who calcu- 
late, according to it, the beginning of the year 750 as the date of that birth.® 


Ver. 18. ’Avayop. dé aitov] The divine direction and flight into Egypt 
must be conceived as taking place immediately after the departure of the 
Magi. — Ver. 16. gaiverac| historic present. — The continuation of the narra- 
tive in connection with the legend of the murder of the children by Herod 
makes Jesus take refuge in Hgypt, not because it was near at hand, not sub- 
ject to Herod, and inhabited by many Jews, but because a residence in 
Egypt, and that as an antitype to that of the Israelites in that country, was 
in accordance with the passage in Hos. xi. 1 (ver. 15). A later age named 
Matarea, near Leontopolis, as the locality.* — éwe dv eizw coi] until I shall have 
told thee (av, of a case occurring), that is, that thou shouldst come back 
again. Ellipsis of the common ‘‘7¢” is, since the time of Homer,’ in uni- 
versal use. — roi arodécac] Expression of the intention.*® 

Ver. 15. Tov vidv pov] refers in Hos. xi. 1 (quoted according to the original 
text) to the people of Israel (Ex. iv. 22; Jer. xxxi. 9). The Septuagint 
has ra réxva abrov (Israelis). Upon the iva rAnpwhh, see oni. 22. Here it 
refers to the arrival of Jesus in Egypt and Lis residence there, which could not 
dut take place as an antitype to the historical meaning of Hos. xi. 1, in 
order that that declaration of the prophet might receive its Messianic fulfil- 
ment. 


1 Eusebius, Demonst. ev. 9: John of Da- 
mascus, de fide Orthod. ii. 7. 

2The assumption (Paulus, Olshausen, 
Wieseler, Lichtenstein, Ebrard) that the 
presentationin the temple took place before 
the arrival of the Magi, breaks down at 
once before Luke ii. 39. See, besides, 
Strauss, I. p. 284 ff. The accounts in Mat- 
thew and Luke are irreconcilable (Schleier- 
macher, Z. J. pp. 65 ff., 75). This is also 
recognized by Bleek, who gives the prefer- 


ence to Luke. 
3Tdeler, Miinter, Schubert, Huschke, 
Ebrard, 747; Kepler, 748; Lichenstein and 
Weigl, 749; Wurm, 751; Seyffarth, 752. 
4 See Paulus, Merkw. Reisen in d. Orient, II. 
p. 256 ; Schubert, Reise in d. Morgeni. Il. p. 
70. 
5 Nagelsbach on the Zliad, pp. 60, 120, 
ed. 3. 
6 See Kiihner, II. p. 204; Buttm. newt. Gr. 
p. 232 [E. T. 270]. 


66 THE GOSPEL OF MATTHEW. 


Ver. 16. "Everaiy6y|amocked, made a fool of.1_ The words are from Herod’s 
point of view. —a7d dierotc¢] Whether this is to be taken as masculine, a 
bienni, from two years onwards,” or as neuter, a bimatu, from the age of two 
years,® is not determined by the similar passages, Num. i. 3, xx. 45 ; 3 Esdr. 
viii, 1; 1 Chron. xxvii. 23 ; 2 Chron. xxxi. 16. It is in favor, however, 
of the latter view, that although several are spoken of, yet the singular al- 
ways stands (not a7 duerév) ; so likewise the analogy of éri dceréc.* — ai 
xatwtépw| (beginning) from two years old and (continuing) downwards. 
The opposite expression is : kai étdvw (Num. i. 3 3 2 Chron. xxxi. 16). The 
boys of two years old and younger, in order the more unfailingly to attain 
his purpose. — 7xpiBoce] he had obtained precise knowledge (ver. 7). He had 
therefore ascertained from the Magi that, agreeably to the time of the ap- 
pearance of the star, the child could not be more than two years old at the 
most. — év maoz Toic épioe avt.| The houses and courts outside of Bethlehem 
which yet belonged to its borders. 

Ver. 18. Jer. xxxi. 15 (freely quoted according to the Septuagint) treats 
of the leading away of the Jews to Babylon, whose destiny Rachel, the an- 
cestress of the children of Ephraim, bewails. According to the typically 
prophetic view in Matthew, the lamentation and mourning of Rachel, repre- 
sented by the prophet, has an antitypical reference to the murdering of the 
children of Bethlehem, who are her children, because she was the wife of 
Jacob, and the mother of Joseph and Benjamin (Gen. xxxvy. 18). And this 
reference was all the more obvious that, according to Gen. xxxv. 19,° Rachel 
was buried at Bethlehem (Robinson, I. p..3873). According to Chrysostom, 
Theophylact, Euth. Zigabenus, Piscator, Fritzsche, Rachel is regarded as 
the representative of Bethlehem, or of the mothers of Bethlehem. But 
why, in keeping with the antitypical view of the prophet’s words, should 
not Rachel herself appear as lamenting over the massacre of those children ? 
Rama, however, where, according to the prophet, that lamentation resound- 
ed, is here the type of Bethlehem. — Regarding the position of Rama (now 
the village er Ram), near to Gibeah, two hours to the north of Jerusalem, be- 
longing at one time to Ephraim, at another to Benjamin, and on its identity, 
which is denied by others, with the Ramah of Samuel.* There the exiles were 
kept in custody, Jer. xl. 1.—xAaiovca] The participle, which in general 
never stands for the finite tense (in answer to de Wette), has here its govern- 
ment either with jxotc( (Fritzsche) or with oix 7eAe, where xai is to be 
translated ‘‘also” (Rachel weeping. , . was also inaccessible to consolation)." 


1 Sophocles, Ant. 794; Lucian, 7rag. 331; 

- Jacobs, a@ Anthol. XI. p. 108; Luke xviii. 

32; and frequently in N. T., LXX., and 
Apocrypha. 


2Syr., Ar., Erasmus, Beza, Bengel, 
Fritzsche, Bleek. 
3 Vulg., Castalio, Calvin, Er. Schmid, 


Rosenmiiller, Gratz. 

4Dem. 1135. 4; Aesch. in Ctes. 122; émi 
tpvetes, Arist. H. A. v. 14. Comp. likewise 
Arist. H. A. ii. 1, and amd tpretots, Plat. 


Legq. vii. p. 794 A. 

5 Where, however, the words ono ney 
N)7 are to be regarded as a gloss. See 
Thenius on 1 Sam. x.2; Graf in the Stud. 
u. Kritik. 1854, p. 868. 

6 Gesenius, Thes. III. p. 1275; Thenius, 
Winer, von Raumer, Keim ; see Graf in the 
Stud. u. Kritik. 1854, p. 858 ff.; Pressel in 
Herzog’s Hncykl. X11. p. 515 f. 

7 On the distinction between kai ov« and 
ovdé, see Hartung, Partikell. 1. p. 212 f. 


CHAP. 11.,-20,'21. 67 


The first is to be preferred as the most natural and most appropriate to the 
emotional style, so that ‘Pay7A KAaiovea links itself on as an apposition, and 
then the author ‘‘sequentium sententiarum gravitate commotus a participio 
ad verbum finitum deflectit,” ‘‘moved by the gravity of the following sen- 
timents, turns from the participle to a finite verb,” Kithner, ad Xen. Mem. 
se 0 


Remark.—The slaughter of the children at Bethlehem is closely connected 
with the appearance of the Magi, and was in its legendary character already 
extended as early as Justin (c. Tr. 78) to all the children of Bethlehem. Jose- 
phus, who makes such minute mention of the cruelty of Herod,? is silent regard- 
ing this event, which, had it been known to him as a matter of history, he 
would most probably have mentioned on account of its unexampled brutality. 
The confused narrative of Macrobius (Sat. ii. 4) * can here determine nothing, 
because it first proceeded directly or indirectly from the Christian tradition. 
Finally, the slaughter of the children itself appears not only as an altogether 
superfluous measure, since, after the surprising homage offered by the Magi, 
the child, recently born under extraordinary circumstances, must have been 
universally known in the small and certainly also provincial village of Bethle- 
hem, or could at least, have been easily and certainly discovered by the in- 
quiries of the authorities ; but also as a very unwise measure, since a summary 
slaughter of children could by no means give the absolute certainty which was 
aimed at. To understand the origin of the legend, it is not enough to point 
back to the typical element in the childhood of Moses, or even to the dangers 
undergone in childhood by Romulus, Cyrus, and so on (Strauss) ; but see the 
Remark after ver. 12. It is arbitrary, however, to exclude the flight of Jesus 
into Egypt from this cycle of legends, and to explain it historically in an alto- 
gether strange fashion, from the terrible commotion in which, after the death of 
Herod, Jerusalem and the surrounding localities were plunged.‘ It is indissol- 
ubly connected with the slaughter of the children, and stands or falls with it; in 
the preliminary history of Luke there is no place whatever for it. 


Vv. 20, 21. TeOvyjxace . . . Cyrovveec] is to be understood simply of Herod. 
The plural is very often used where the conception of a species is to be ex- 
pressed, and then denotes the subject, not according to number, but chiefly 
according to the category to which it belongs.® Frequently, particularly in 
the tragic writers, it contains a special emphasis,® which also announces it- 


self in the present passage. 
councillors or servants. 


1 On the tragic designation ov« elvat, mor- 
tuum esse, comp. Xlii. 36; Thue. ii. 44. 2; 
Herod. iii. 65; Wetstein in loc.; Ellendt, 
Lex. Soph. I. p. 515. 

7 Antt. xv. 7. 8, xvi. 11. 8, xvii. 2. 4; see 
Ottii Spicileg. p. 541. 

3 Ed. Bipont. p.341 of Augustus : ‘‘ Cum au- 
disset, inter pueros, quos in Syria Herodes, 
rex Judaeorum, intra bimatum jussit inter- 
fici, filium quoque ejus occisum, ait : melius 
est Herodis porcum (iv) esse quam filium 
(viov).”” A confusion of the murder of An- 


Ver. 19 is decisive against this view. 


Others* regard it as includine Herod and his 
5S oS 


Others : ® the 


tipater (Joseph. Antt. xvii. 7) with our his- 
tory, as if a son of the king himself (in an- 
swer to Wieseler, Beit7. p. 154) had been 
among the murdered Syrian children. 

4 Ammon, Z. J. I. p. 226 f. 

5 Reisig, ad Soph. Oed. C. 966, and Conject. 
in Aristoph. p. 58; Wunder, ad Soph. O. R. 
361; Elwert, Quaestion. ad philolog. sacr. 
1860, p- 10 f.; Winer, p. 165 [E. T. 219]. 

6 Hermann, ad Viger. p. 739. 

7 Euth. Zigabenus. 

8 Gratz, B. Crusius, de Wette. 


68 THE GOSPEL OF MATTHEW. 


plural is put, because the words are taken from Ex. iv. 19. But there the 
plural is required not only by the ravrec, which stands in the text, but like- 
wise by the whole connection. The resemblance to Ex. iv. 19 is either ac- 
cidental, or, more probably, intentionally selected in the consciousness of 
being a historical parallel. —ei¢ y. ‘Iop.] Note the extent and indefiniteness of 
the designation ; Joseph could thus afterwards turn his steps to Galilee 
without acting in opposition to the instruction. Comp. 1 Sam. xiii. 19; 
Bzek. xi. 17. — Cyreiv rv puygv|] V2I-NS WP 3 seek the soul—that is, seek after 
one’s life (Rom. xi. 3). The present participle with the article used as a 
substantive.’ Herod died in Jericho (according to Gerlach, in Jerusalem) in 
the year 750, his genitals and bowels being eaten up of worms,’ in the 
thirty-seventh year of his reign, and in the seventieth of his age.* The ty- 
rant became a prey to despair at his death, an attempt at suicide having failed 
in his last extremity. 

Ver. 22. Augustus, after the death of Herod and the complications connect- 
ed with it,* divided the kingdom amongst his three sons in such a manner 
that Archelaus received the half of the four quarters of the kingdom, namely, 
Judea, Idumaea, and Samaria ; Antipas, Galilee and Perea ; Philip, Batanea, 
Trachonitis, and Auranitis.—Both the latter were called Tetrarchs, but Arche- 
laus obtained the title of Hthnarch,*° which was to be exchanged for the title of 
king should he prove worthy of it. But after nine years he was banished 
by Augustus on account of his cruelty to Vienne,® and died there. His ter- 
ritory was added to the province of Syria, and placed under the administra- 
tion of a procurator.— Baovdetew is therefore here taken generally : regnare, 
as it often is in the classics. On avri, compare Herod. i. 108 ; Xen. Anab. 
i, 1, iv. 2; 2 Chron. xxxiii. 20; 1 Macc. iii. 1, ix. 31, xili. 4. — é¢0876n] 
for Archelaus resembled his father in his suspicious and cruel temper.’ — éxez 
aveAbeiv| a well-known attraction : adverbs of rest with verbs of direction, 
xvii. 20.°—TatsAaiac] in the portions of his district belonging to Galilee (xv. 21, 
xvi. 13 ; Acts ii. 10), so that he avoided Judea, and did not return to Beth- 
lehem. The voluptuary Antipas was known to be more humane than 
Archelaus. 

Ver. 23. ’EAAév] to Galilee. —eic réAw] eic does not belong to éA@dv 
(Fritzsche, Olshausen), but to xatgxyoev, beside which it stands in Gen. 
xiii. 18; xarox. includes the movement connected with the settlement, and 
that in such a way that the latter was the predominating element in the 
thought of the writer : he went and settled at Nazareth.® — Nazareth] in 


1 See Winer, p. 103 f. [E. T. 219]. Comp. xv. 24; LXX. Deut. i 37; 2 Sam. xvii. 18; 


Dissen, ad Dem. de cor. p. 238. Winer, p. 439 [E. T. 591]; Bernhardy, p. 

2 Joseph. Bell. i. 838. 1,5; Antt. xvii. 6.5; 349f. 

Euseb. HZ. £. i. 68. *° Comp. iv. 13; Acts vii. 4; 2 Chron. xix. 

3 Josephus, Anéét. xvii. 8. 1, xvii. 9. 3. 4. See Kiihner, I. p. 471. 

4 Comp. Schneckenburger, neutest. Zeit- 10 Upon the form of the name Naéapa, 
gesch. p. 201 ff.; Hausrath, newt. Zeitgesch. which, although attested as ancient in 
I. p. 284 ff. ; Keim in Schenkel’s Bibvellea. many ways, is yet found only in a few pas- 

5 Josephus, Anét. xvii. 8. 1, xvii. 11. 4. sages in the mss. of the N. T., and very un- 

6 Josephus, Antt. xvii. 138.2; B. J. ii. 7. 3. equally supported (Tischendorf, 8th ed., has 

7 Josephus, Anté. xvii. 11. 2. f. received it into the text in iv. 138, and in 


8 John vii. 35, viii. 21, xi. 8, xviii. 3; Rom. Iuke iy. 16), see Keim, I. p. 319; comp. also 


CHAP... IT., 23. 69 


Lower Galilee, in the tribe of Zabulon, situated on a hill (Luke iv. 20), 
with pleasant environs.’ Mentioned neither in the O. T. nor in Josephus. 
— rac] in order that. See i. 22. — dia trv rpod.] not the plural of cate- 
gory (ver. 20, so Fritzsche), according to which Isaiah only could be meant, 
but the prophets generally, Luke xviii. 31 ; Rom. i. 2. — érc] not the Reeita- 
tivum, although its use in the Gospel of Matthew cannot be denied, vii. 23, 
ix. 18, xiv. 26, xxvii. 43, 47, but ‘‘that,” as no individual express state- 
ment is quoted. — Nafwpaioc] of Nazareth, xxvi. 71. In Isa. xi. 1, the Mes- 
siah, as the offspring of David, is called Y¥1, shoot, with which, in the rep- 
resentation of the evangelist, this designation was identified, only expressed 
by another word, namely, N2¥ (Jer. xxiii. 5, xxxiii. 15 ; Zech. iii. 8, vi. 
12 ; Isa. iv. 2) ; therefore he wrote, 6:a rév rpodytév. In giving this pro- 
phetic title of Vito the Messiah, he entirely disregards the historical 
meaning of the same (LXX. Isa. xi. 1 : av@oc), keeps by the relationship of 
the name Nazareth to the word 7¥), and recognizes, by virtue of the same, 
in that prophetic Messianic name WNezer, the typical reference to this, that 
Jesus, through His settlement in Nazareth, was to become a Nafwpaioc ; 
the translator therefore, rigthly apprehending this typical reference, expressed 
the Hebrew ¥) by Nafwpaioc, although he may have also found in the orig- 
inal Hebrew draft of the Gospel 131 {3,or, more probably, "783. The evangel- 
ist must in any case have derived the name Nazareth from 7¥), and it is like- 
wise probable initself.2 But others * regard the words as a quotation from 
a lost prophetical book. But always, where in the N. T. the prophets are 
quoted, those in the completed canon are meant. Others* are of opinion 
that Naf{wpaioc refers to the despised and melancholy position of the Messiah 
depicted by the prophets in accordance with Ps. xxii., Isa. lili. For Naz- 
areth was despised, see Johni. 47, vii. 52. But the question here is not as to 
a prophetic description (of the lowliness of the Messiah), but as to the definite 
prophetic name (KAnOycerar), to which the settlement in Nazareth may corre- 
spond ; and, indeed, the evangelist must have found the name itself in the 
prophets, and not have inserted it ex eventu, namely, because Nazareth 
served to make the Messiah an object of misapprehension (in answer to 


Delitzsch, Jesus u. Hillel, p. 138. In the pas- 1 Robinson, Paldst. III. p. 419 ff.; Ritter, 


sage before us it is without any support, as 
wellas in xxi. 11, and in the remaining pas- 
sages of the other evangelists,except Luke i. 
26, iv. 16. The form Nagapaé is often found 
in mss., as also Nagapar. But itis the admis- 
sion of Na¢apér (or Nagapé@) alone into the 
text that can be justified, and that as the 
standing reading, all the more that even in 
iv. 13 and in Luke iy. 16 there is by no 
means a decisive predominance of testi- 
mony for Nagapa, which has no support, 
moreover, in Acts x. 88. Although Nazara 
was the original form of the name (see in 
answer to Ewald’s doubts, Keim, II. p. 421 
f.), which is probable, it must notwith- 
standing have been strange to the evangel- 
ists. 


Erdk. XVI. p. 739 ff.; Furer, Wander. durch. 
Paldst. p. 267 ff.; Tobler, Nazar. in Paldst., 
1868. 

2 See Hengstenberg, Christol. II. p. 124 ff. 
“Byruditi Hebraet*’ already referred the 
Nagwp. cA. back to the V¥J}; see Jerome 
on Isa. xi. 1, and, more recently, Piscator, 
Casaubon, Jansen, Maldonatus, Surenhu- 
sius, Bauer (did/. Theol. I. p. 163), Fritzsche, 
Gieseler, Kern, Krabbe, de Wette, B. Cru- 
sius, Késtlin, Bleek, Hengstenberg, Kahnis, 
Anger, formerly also Hilgenfeld. 

3 Chrysostom, Theophylact, 
Gratz. 

4 Michaelis, Paulus, Kuinoel, Gersdorf, 
Kaiiffer, Olshausen, Ebrard, Lange. 


Clericus, 


70 THE GOSPEL OF MATTHEW. 


Hofmann, Weissag. vu. Hrfiill. p. 66). For that reason also the opinion of 
others is to be rejected,’ who, after Tertullian and Jerome, take Nag. for 
the Hebrew VI}, that it might be fulfilled . . . that He shall be (called) a 
Nazarite. Jesus had neither represented Himself to be such a consecrated 
person, Matt. xi. 19, nor can any passage in the prophets be pointed out as 
referring to this ; therefore Ewald, in opposition to did rév mpog., assumes 
the statement to be taken from an Apocryphal book, in which the Messiah, 
on His first appearance, was represented as a Nazarite, so that the evange- 
list was led, from the similarity of the word, to infer a reference to Naza- 
reth. If, however, in Nafwpaioc the Hebrew 183, Preserver, has been sup- 
posed to be contained, and that in such a way that it had as its basis either 
Ex. xxxiv. 6 f.,? then something entirely foreign is thus imported, as in 
those passages there is to be found neither a designation of the Messiah nor 
any prophetic declaration. Still more arbitrary is the reference of Hitzig* 
to Isa. xlix. 6, where *})¥) has been taken as singular, and explained as a pred- 
icate of the Messiah, as the leader of those who are saved. Delitzsch has 
referred to Isa. xlii. 6 ; so that Christ is predicted as He who is preserved 
in dangers (1983, Isa. xlix. 6), whilst Nazareth was His place of concealment. 


RemargE.—-The evangelist expresses himself in ver. 23 in such a manner that 
throughout the narrative Nazareth cannot appear to the reader as the original 
dwelling-place of Joseph and Mary. Bethlehem rather, according to his ac- 
count, appears to be intended as such (ver. 22), whilst Nazareth was the place 
of sojourn under the special circumstances which occurred after the death of 
Herod. The account given by Luke is quite different. This variation is to be 
admitted, and the reconciliation of both accounts can only be brought about 
in an arbitrary manner,* which is all the more inadmissible that, on the whole, 
the narratives of Matthew and Luke regarding the birth and early infancy of 
Jesus in important points mutually exclude each other. Amid all their other 
variations, however, in the preliminary history in which they are independent 
of one another, they agree in this, that Bethlehem was the place of birth, and it is in 
opposition to the history to relegate this agreement to the sphere of dogmatic 
reflection, and to transport the birth of Jesus to Nazareth,® since the designa- 


1 Erasmus, Beza, Calvin, Grotius, Wet- 
stein, Hilgenfeld. 

2 Zuschlag in Guericke’s Zeitschr. (1854, 
Ill. p. 417 ff., or Ps. xxxi. 24 (Riggenbach in 
the Stud. wu. Krit. 1855, p. 606 f.) 

3 In the theol. Jahrb. 1842, p. 410. 

4 That Joseph, brought to Bethlehem by 
the census, settled there. Matthew accord- 
ingly represents Bethlehem as his dvwelling- 
place. The flight to Egypt, however, again 
soon broke up the residence in Bethlehem,so 
that the sojourn was only 4 passing one, and 
therefore Luke rightly regarded the subse- 
quent settlement at Nazareth asa return 
thither. See Neander, Ebrard, Hofmann, 
Krabbe, Lange. Wieseler’s reasons also 
(chronolog. Synopse, p. 35 ff.) against the view 
that Matthew makes Bethlehem appear as 


the original dwelling-place of Jesus, will 
not stand. This view is to be regarded, by 
the account in Matthew, which is to be 
looked on as independent, and standing by 
itself, as a necessary exegetical result by 
means of ver. 22, and is undoubtedly con- 
firmed by ver. 23, where Joseph’s settle- 
ment in Nazareth appears as something 
new, which must occur in order to fulfil a 
prophetic prediction, so that consequently no 
reader of Matthew could come to think 
that Nazareth had been Joseph’s dwelling- 
place. Wieseler, however, has, moreover, 
strikingly demonstrated the unhistorical 
nature of the view that Jesus was orn at 
Nazareth. 
5 Strauss, Hilgenfeld, Keim. 


NOTE. G1 


tion of Jesus as belonging to Nazareth! finds its natural and complete explana- 
tion in the short and passing sojourn of His parents at Bethlehem after His 
birth, whereas, had Jesus Himself been a native of Galilee, He would neither 
have found a believing reception amongst His people, nor, on the other hand, 
could His Messiahship have been held to be based on a prophetic foundation, 
Comp. also Luke ii. 39 and John vii. 42. 


Norr py AMERtcan Eprror. 


10 


In relation to the visit of the Magi to Jerusalem, see Preface to this volume, 
page Xili., et seq. 


1 Matt. xiii. 84; Mark vi. 1; Luke iv. 19. 


%2 THE GOSPEL OF MATTHEW. 


CHAPTER, iif, 


Ver. 2. cai 2éywv] Lachm, and Tisch. have merely Aéywv, only after B &, Hil. 
and some Verss. The superfluous «ai was easily overlooked. — Ver. 3. iz0] B 
CD 8, 1, 18, 33, 124, 157, 209, Syrus Sahid. Aeth. Vulg. It. Sax. read dud; so 
Griesbach, Gersdorf, Schulz, Lachm., Tisch. Correctly ; see on ii. 17. — Ver. 
4, The position 7v avrov (Lachm., Tisch.) is, by means of BC D 8, 1, 209, so 
sufficiently attested, that it must be preferred to the ordinary position adroi 7, 
which spontaneously suggested itself to the copyists. — Ver. 6. ’Iopddvy] B C* 
M A 8, Curss., and many Verss. and Fathers, add rorauo ; so Lachm. and 
Tisch. 8. Addition from Mark i. 5.—Ver. 7. The airov was easily passed 
over after Bantioua as unnecessary ; it is wanting, however, only in B &*, 
Sahid. Or. Hil., but is deleted by Tisch. 8, —Ver. 8. xaprov dior] Elz. has 
Kaptovc asiovc, after too weak testimony. Retained by Fritzsche, It arose from 
the copyists, who deemed the plural more appropriate to the’ sense, and had 
Luke iii. 8 in view. — Ver. 10. dé cat] Lachm. Tisch. : dé, which is so prepon- 
derantly attested by BC DMA 8&, Curss. Verss. Or. Ir. Did. Bas., that 6é kai 
is to be regarded as introduced from Luke iii. 9.— Ver. 14. Instead of 6 dé 
Twavvnc, Lachm. and Tisch. 8 have only o de, after B &, Sahid. Eus. Correctly ; 
the name was much more easily interpolated than omitted. — Ver. 16. The 
transposition cific avéBn in BD &, Curss. Verss. and Fathers (so Lachm. and 
Tisch.), isa change, which assigned to the eifvc its more usual place (Gersdorf, 
L..p. 485). — aitw] is bracketed by Lachm., deleted by Tisch., but has a decided 
preponderance of witnesses in its favor, and its significance was easily mis- 
understood and passed over. — kai] before épyéu. is to be defended on decisive 
testimony, against Tisch. 8; comp. on ver. 2. 


Ver. 1. "Ev. . . éxetvarc] OM O'N°3, Ex. ii. 11, 23; Isa. xxviii. 1. In- 
definite determination of time, which, however, always points back to a 
date which has preceded it. Mark i. 9; Luke ii. 1. Here : at the time when 
Jesus still sojourned at Nazareth. The evangelist passes over the history of 
the youth of Jesus, and at once goes onwards to the forerunner of the Mes- 
siah ; for he might not have had at his command any written documents, 
and sufficiently trustworthy traditions regarding it, since the oldest manner 
of presenting the gospel history, as still retained in Mark, began first with 
John the Baptist, to which beginning our evangelist also turns without fur- 
ther delay. It employs in so doing only the very indefinite transition with 
the same simplicity of unstudied historical writing, as in Ex. ii. 11, where 
by the same expression is meant the time when Moses still sojourned at the 
court of Egypt, though not the time of his childhood (ver. 10), but of his 
manhood. Accordingly, the following hypotheses are unnecessary ; that of 
Paulus: in the original document, from which Matthew borrowed the fol- 
lowing narrative, something about John the Baptist may have preceded, to 


CHAP. Th 2s vi) 


which this note of time was appended, which Matthew retained, without 
adopting that preliminary matter ; of Holtzmann: that a look forward to 
Mark i. 9 here betrays itself ; of Schneckenburger :' that in the gospel accord- 
ing to the Hebrews év raic¢ 7uépare ‘Hpddov erroneously stood, instead of which 
Matthew put the indefinite statement before us ; of Hilgenfeld :* in the older 
narrative, which lay at the foundation of our Matthew, the genealogical tree 
of Jesus was perhaps followed by év raic¢ juépaig ‘Hpddov tov BaciAréwe rig ’Iov- 
daiacg HAGev (or éyéveT0) Iwdvync.* The correct view was already adopted by 
Chrysostom and his followers, Beza, Camerarius, Bengel : ‘‘ Jesu habitante 
Nazarethae, ii. 23 ; notatur non breve, sed nulla majori mutatione notabile 
intervallum,” ‘‘ Jesus dwelling at Nazareth, ii. 23; there is noted a not 
brief interval, yet not remarkable for any great change.” It is Luke iii. 1 
which first gives the more precise determination of time, and that very mi- 
nutely. — rapayiverac] Historic present, as in ii. 13.4 Opposed to this is the 
év Th épjuw that follows. Matthew has only the more general and indefinite 
expression : he arrives, he appears. Luke xii. 51 ; Heb. ix. 11. — 6 Banrior.] 
Josephus, Antt. xvili. 5. 2: "Iwdvy. 6 éxixadotpevoc Barrticric. —év th ephuw 
tHe “Lovdaiac] WT) V3), Judg. i. 16, Josh. xv. 61, a level plain adapted 
for the feeding of cattle, sparsely cultivated and inhabited,® which begins 
at Tekoa, and extends as far as the Dead Sea.* The mention of the locality 
is more precise in Luke iii. 2 f. ; but that in Matthew, in which the wilder- 
ness is not marked off geographically from the valley of the Jordan, which 
was justified by the nature of the soil,’ and involuntarily called forth by the 
following prophecy, is not incorrect. Comp. Ebrard (in answer to Strauss) ; 
Keim, /.c. p. 494. 

Ver. 2. Meravocire] denotes the transformation of the moral disposition, which 
is requisite in order to obtain a share in the kingdom of the Messiah.* In 
the mouth of John the conception could only be that of the Old Testament 
(OM, 33), expressing the transformation according to the moral require- 
ments of the daw, but not yet the Christian idea, according to which peravora 
has as its essential inseparable correlative, faith in Jesus as the Messiah 
(Mark i. 15), after which the Holy Spirit, received by means of baptism, 
establishes and completes the new birth from above into true Cw7.° — jyyixe} 
it is near ; for John expected that Jesus would set up Hiskingdom. Comp. 
The kingdom of heaven (the plural is 


iv. 17, x. 7. —7 Baovteia tov obpavor]."° 


1 7b. d. erste kanon. Ev. p. 120. 

2 Evang. p. 55. 

§ Compare also Keim, Gesch. J. I. p. 61. 

4 Euth. Zigabenus: 760ev 6 Iwavyvys mapay- 
éyovev ; amo THs evdotépas epyjov. 

* The idea of a flat surface called 1371) 
is given us partially in the Liineburger 
Heath. See generally, Crome, Beitrdge zur 
Erklir. des N. T. p. 41 ff. Not to be con- 
fused with MI, steppe, concerning which 
see Credner in the Stud. u. Krit. 1833, p. 798 
ff. Compare in regard to owr wilderness, 
Robinson, Pal. II. p. 431. 


6 Winer, Realwérterb. s.v. Wiiste » Tobler, 
Denkblitter aus Jerus. p. 682; Keim, Gesch. J. 
I. p. 484 f. 

7 Josephus, Bell. iii. 10. 7, iv. 8. 2 f. 

8 Sanhedrin f. 97%, 2: “Si Israelitae 
poenitentiam agunt, tune per Goélem lib- 
erantur.”’ 

® John iii. 8, 5; Tit. iii. 5f. ; Acts ii. 38. 

10 See Fleck, de regno div. 1829 ; Weissen- 
bach, Jesu in regno coelor. dignitas, 1868 ; 
Keim, Gesch. J. If. p. 40 ff. ; Kamphausen, 
d. Gebet des Herren, p. 56 ff.; Wittichen, @. 
Idee des Reiches Gottes, 1872. 


74 THE GOSPEL OF MATTHEW. 


to be explained from the popular idea of seven heavens ; see on 2 Cor. xii. 
2) corresponds to the Rabbinical DDwn m390,—an expression which is 
used by the Rabbins mostly indeed in the ethico-theocratic sense, but also in 
the eventually historical meaning of the theocracy, brought to its consumma- 
tion by the Messiah.? In the N. T. this expression occurs only in Matthew, 
and that as the usual one, which, as that which was most frequently employed 
by Jesus Himself, is to be regarded as derived from the collection of say- 
ings (in answer to Weiss). Equivalent in meaning to it are : BaovAsia tod 
Geov (also in Matthew, yet much rarer and not everywhere critically certain), 
Baowd. t. Xpiotov, 7 Bacideia.* The kingdom of the Messiah is designated by 
7 Bac. T. ovp., because this kingdom, the conswmmated theocracy in its glory, 
is no earthly kingdom, John xviii. 36, but belongs to heaven, appears to us as 
descending from heaven, where, up till that time, its blessings, its salvation, 
and its dofa are preserved by God for bestowal at some future period. 
Although among the Jewish people the theocratic idea, of which the proph- 
ets were the bearers, had preserved its root,—and from this people alone, 
in accordance with its divine preparation and guidance, could the realiza- 
tion of this idea, and with it the salvation of the world, proceed, as, indeed, 
the profounder minds apprehended and cherished the mighty thought of 
Messiah in the sense of the true rule of God, and of its destination for the 
world,—yet the common idea of the people was predominantly political 
and particularistic, frequently stamped with the fanatical thought of a 
world-rule and with millenarian ideas (the Messiah raises up the descend- 
ants of Abraham, then comes the kingdom which lasts a thousand years, 
then the resurrection and the condemnatory judgment of the heathen, the 
descent of the heavenly Jerusalem, and the everlasting life of the descend- 
ants of Abraham on the earth, which has been transformed along with the 
whole universe). In the teaching of Christ, however, and in the apostolic 
writings, the kingdom of the Messiah is the actual consummation of the 
prophetic idea of the rule of God ; and as it is unaccompanied by millena- 
rian ideas (which exist only in the non-apostolic Apocalypse), so also is it 
without any national limitation, so that participation therein rests only on 
faith in Jesus Christ, and on the moral renewal which is conditioned by the 
same, and ‘‘God all in all” is the last and highest aim, without the thought 
of the world-rule, and the expectation of the renewal of the world, of the 
resurrection, of the judgment, and also of the external glory losing their 
positive validity and necessity,—thoughts which rather form the subject 
of living Christian “hope amidst all the struggles and oppressions of the 
world. Moreover, those expressions, Bacijcia tov ovpavar, x.T.A., never 
signify anything else than the kingdom of the Messiah,* even in those passages 
where they appear to denote the (invisible) church, the moral kingdom of 
the Christian religion, and such like ; or to express some modern abstrac- 
tion of the concrete conception,® which is one given in the history,—an 


1Schoettgen, Diss. de rvegno cocor.T.in 26f. 

his Horae, 1. p. 1147 ff., and Wetstein in Joc. 4 Koppe, Hac. I. ad Thess. 
2 Targum, Mich. iv. 7) in Wetstein. 5 ey. an organized commonwealth under 
© Comp. Isa, xx. 6; Dan. ii. 44, vii. 14 ff., | the principle of the divine will (Tholuck) ; 


CHAP SITE 3. rc) 


appearance which is eliminated by observing that the manner of expression 
is frequently proleptic, and which has its historical basis in the idea of the 
nearness of the kingdom, and in the moral development which necessarily 
precedes its manifestation (comp. Matt. xi. 12, xii. 28, xvi. 19).1 That 
John the Baptist also had, under divine revelation, apprehended ‘the idea of 
the Messiah’s kingdom in the ethical light, free from any limitation to the 
Jewish people (John i. 29), without, however, entirely giving up the polit- 
ical element, is already shown by ver. 7 ff. It cannot, however, be proved, 
and is, considering the divine illumination of the Baptist, improbable, and 
also without any foundation in xi. 3, that too much has been put into his 
mouth by ascribing to him the definite announcement of the kingdom. If 
Josephus, in his account of John, makes no mention of any expression 
pointing to the Messiah,’ yet this may be sufficiently explained from his 
want of susceptibility for the higher nature of Christianity, and from his 
peculiar political relation to the Romans. 

Ver. 3. Tap]* does not belong to John’s discourse, ver. 3, so that by 
ovroc he points to himself, as Er. Schmid, Raphel, Fritzsche, Paulus, Rettig * 
maintain, since so prominent a self-designation has no basis in the connec- 
tion (John i. 23 ; on the other hand, John vi. 50, 58) ; further, the descrip- 
tive present éo7i is quite in keeping with zapayivera in ver. 1 3 and airic 66, 
ver. 4, is quite in keeping with the sense of the objectively and generally 
delivered prophetic description (the voice of one calling, and so on), and leads 
to the conerete person thereby intended. — év 7% épfum| belongs in the origi- 
nal text to érouudoare, and in the LXX. also there is no reason for separating 
it from it ; but here it belongs to Bodrroc, according to ver. 1: 
7h épjuw. This in answer to Rettig, Hofmann,’ and Delitzsch. — The pas- 
sage, Isa. xi. 8, quoted according to the LXX., contains historically a sum- 
mons to prepare the way for Jehovah, who is bringing back his people from 
exile, and to make level the streets which He is to traverse, after the anal- 
ogy of what used to take place in the East when rulers set out on a journey 
(Wetstein and Miinthe). In this the evangelist recognizes (and the Baptist 
himself had recognized this, John i. 23) the typically prophetic reference to 
John as the prophet who was to call on the Jews to prepare themselves by 
repentance for the reception of the Messiah (whose manifestation is the mani- 
festation of Jehovah). In Isaiah, the voice which calls is that of a herald 


Kypboowy &v 


arrangement of things in which this will has 
come to its consummation, and now alone 
is operative (Hofmann). Schleiermacher : 
“The idea of the kingdom of God must 
have originated in Christ from His self- 
consciousness and His perception of sin, if 
He conceived of His life as disseminated 
among the masses.” 

1Comp. on Rom. xiy. 17; 1 Cor. iv. 20; 
Col. i. 13, iy. 11; Matt. vi. 10. 

2 Antt. xviii. 5.2: Kretver rodrov ‘Hpwdys, 
ayabov avSpa Kat tovs "Iovdaiovs KeAcvovTa 
apeTHy emacKkovvTas Kal TH] mpos GAANAOUS Stkato- 
TUV} Kal mpos Tov Oedy evoeBeia xpwuevous Bar- 


TLTL@ ovvievat’ oUTwW yap Kal THY BarTLoLY amo- 
Sexthv avT@ davetoOat, pH eri Twv apapTadwv 
TApATHTEL XPwWLEVWV, GAA’ Eh’ ayvEela TOV THLa- 
Tos, ate 5H Kat THS WuxAs Stkatogvvy mpoekKe- 
xa0appevyns. [See Whiston’s translation of 
Josephus’s Works.] 

3 ** Causa, cur Johannes ita exoriri tum 
debuerit, uti v. 1, 2, describitur, quia sic 
praedictum erat,” ‘‘ The cause why John at 
that time ought thus to appear (arise) is 
described in vy. 1 and 2, because it had 
been so predicted,” Bengel. 

4In the Stud. u. Krit. 1838, p. 205 f. 

5 Weissag. u. Evf. Il. p. 77 f. 


76 THE GOSPEL OF MATTHEW. 


of Jehovah, who desires to begin his journey ; in the Messianic fulfilment, it 
is the voice of the Baptist. — Faith in a God-sent forerunner of the Messiah, 
based on prophecy (Mal. iii. 1; Luke i. 17, 76) and confirmed by Jesus 
Himself (xi. 10, xvii. 11), and attested as realized in the appearance of the 
Baptist, had in various ways’ assumed the form of the expectation of the 
return of one of the ancient prophets. Comp. xvi. 14 ; Johni. 21. 

Ver. 4. Avréc] ipse autem Johannes, the historical person himself, who is 
intended (ver. 3) by that @w»f of Isaiah.—eiye . . . Kaujdov| He had his 
(distinctive, constantly worn) robe of camels’ hair, The reading is airoi, 
which is neither to be written airov (it is used from the standpoint of the 
narrator, and without any reflective emphasis), nor is it superfluous. 
Whether are we to think of a garment of camels’ skin, or a coarse cloth of 
camels’ hair? Er. Schmid and Fritzsche are of the former opinion. But 
as hair alone is expressly mentioned as the material ? (comp. also Mark i. 6), 
the latter is to be preferred. Even at the present day coarse cloth is pre- 
pared from camels’ hair for clothing and for covering tents. Of clothes 
made from the hides of camels (probably, however, from’sheep and goat- 
skins, compare Heb. xi. 37) there is not a trace to be found among either 
ancient or modern Oriental saints.4— depuarivyy] not of a luxurious material, 
but like Elijah, 2 Kings i. 8, whose copy he was.* Dress and food are in 
keeping with the asceticism of the Baptist, and thereby with the profound 
earnestness of his call to werdvora. ‘‘ Habitus quoque et victus Johannis 
praedicabat,” ‘‘the dress also and the food of John were preaching,” 
Bengel. — axpidec] Several kinds of locusts were eaten, Lev. xi. 22.° This 
is still the custom in the East, especially amongst the poorer classes and the 
Bedouins. The wings and legs are torn off, and the remainder is sprinkled 
with salt, and either boiled or eaten roasted.7. The conjectures of the older 
writers, who, deeming this food unworthy of John, have substituted some- 
times cakes (#yxpidec),® sometimes crabs (kapidec), or fruits of the nut kind 
(axpédpva), and other articles, deserve no consideration. — wédu ypiov] Com- 


1 See Bertholdt, Christol. p. 58. 
2 Comp. Josephus, Bell. Jud. xvii. 24. 3: 


Saorls Lisi mS ‘ , 
@s avTt TOV BagltAtK@v ev TaxeL TEpLOncovaLW 


Gospel was derived from Greek sources, 
especially from the Greek Matthew. So 
also Credner, Beitr. I. p. 344 f.; Bleek, Beitr. 
p. 61; Harless, Hrl. Weihnachtsprogr. 1841, 
p.21. Comp. Delitzsch, Hntsteh. u. Anil. d. 
4 Harmar, III. p. 374 ff. kanon. Hv. 1. p. 20. But that passage from 
5 Comp. Ewald, Gesch. d. Volks Isr. TIl. p. the Gospel to the Hebrews contains only 
529. one kind of sustenance employed by John, 
6 Comp. Plin. V.H. vi. 35, xi. 32, 35. the wéAc aypiov, the taste of which is de- 
7 Niebuhr, Reise, I. p. 402; Harmar, I. p. scribed according to Ex. xvi. 31, Num. xi. 
274 f.; Rosenmiiller, altes und neues Morgenl. 8. The Ebionites altogether omitted the 


€avTals EK TPLYOV TETOLHMEVAS, 


3 See Harmar, III. p. 356. 


in loco. 

8 Epiph. Haer. xxx. 13 quotes from the 
Gospel according to the Hebrews: «at ro 
BpOpa avrov, dyor, weAv ayptov, ov H yevats iv 
TOU Mavva ws eyKpts ev eAatw (conjecture : ev 
pedctt, “‘ His food, he says, was wild honey, 
the taste of which was that of manna, as a 
cake in oil (or, in honey).’”? A confusion 
has here been supposed between axpises and 
eyxpides, and it has been inferred that that 


locusts, aS being animal food, but did not 
substitute, as Epiphanius erroneously sup- 
poses, éyxpises for axpides. The resemblance 
of the tree honey to the manna could not 
but be welcome to their Jewish point of 
view ; but because the word éyxpis occurs 
in the books of Moses in the deseription of 
its taste, they adopted it; this has no rela- 
tion whatever to our axpiées. 


CHAP, III., 5: va 


monly : honey prepared by wild bees, which in the East flows out of the clefts 
of the rocks.’ It is still frequently found in abundance at the present day 
in the Jewish wilderness.? Others (Suidas, Salmasius, Reland, Michaelis, 
Kuinoel, Fritzsche, Schegg, Bleek, Volkmar) understand tree-honey, a sub- 
stance of the nature of honey which issues from palms, figs, and other trees.* 
This explanation of tree-honey is to be preferred, as, according to Diod. Sic. 
l.c. and Suidas, the predicate dypiov, as terminus technicus, actually desig- 
nates this honey, whilst the expression péAc dyprov cannot be proved to be 
employed of the honey of wild bees (which, moreover, is the common honey). 

Ver. 5. ‘H repizwpo¢g tov "Iopddvov] J31"1 132, Gen. xiii. 10, 11; 1 Kings 
vii. 47 ; 2 Chron. iv. 17. The country on both sides of the Jordan, now 
Egor. The whole passage conveys an impression of solemnity, with which 
also the naming of the town and district, instead of the inhabitants,* is con- 
nected. The baptism of John has been erroneously regarded as a modified 
application of the Jewish baptism of proselytes.® For the baptism of prose- 
lytes, the oldest testimony to which occurs in the Gemara Babyl. Jebamoth 
xlvi. 2, and regarding which Philo, Josephus, and the more ancient Tar- 
gumists are altogether silent, did not arise till after the destruction of 
Jerusalem.” The reception of proselytes was accomplished, so long as the 
temple stood, by means of circumcision and the presentation of a sacrifice, 
which was preceded, like every sacrifice, by a lustration, which the prose- 
lyte performed on himself. It is not, however, with this lustration merely, 
but chiefly with the religious usages of the Jews as regards washings, and 
their symbolical meaning, * that the baptism of John has its general point of 
connection in the history of the people, although it is precisely as baptism 
and accompanied by the confession of sin, that it appears only as something 
new given to this dawn of the Messiah’s kingdom, under the excitement of 
the divine revelation, of which John was the bearer. Venerable prophetic 
pictures and allusions, like Isa. i. 16, iv. 4, xliv. 44, 3 Ez. xxxvi. 25, Zech. 
xiii. 1, Ps. li. 4, might thus serve to develop it still further in the soul of 
this last of the prophets. What was symbolized in the baptism of John 


was the perdvoa.® To this, however, the immersion of the whole of the 


1 Buth. Zigabenus: 70 év tats tov meTpov 
oXLTmais pPeALTO@Y yewpyouvmeEvor, 
“The honey in the clefts of the rocks pro- 
duced by the bees.” Bochart, Wieroz. II. 
4. 12; Suicer, Zhes. Il. p. 330; Ewald, 
Gesch. Isr. IIL. p. 50. 

2 Schulz, Leitungen dad. Hoichsten auf den 
Reisen durch Hur. As. Afr. V. p. 133; 
Rosenmiiller, I. 1, p. 7; Oedmann, Samm- 
lungen aus ad. Naturk. zur Erkl. d. heii. 
Schr. VI. p. 136 f. 

3 Diod. Sic. xix. 94; Wesseling in loc. ; 
Plin. V. H. xv.7; Suidas, s. ». axpis. Comp. 
Heyne, ad Virg. Eel. ivy. 30. Similarly, 
Polyaenus, iv. 3. 82: 7d vor méAc, the Persian 
manna. 

4See Robinson, Pal. II. p. 498 ff. Comp. 
Lightfoot, Hor. p. 216. 


umd TaV 


5 Naigelsbach on the ZZiad, p. 103 ff. ed. 3. 

® So Selden (jus. nat. ii. 2), Lightfoot (Zor. 
p. 220ff.), Danz (in Meuschen, WV. 7. ex Talm. 
ill. pp. 233 ff., 287 ff.), Ziegler (¢heol. Abh. II. 
p. 132 ff.), Eisenlohr (hist. Bemerk. ub. a. 
Taufe, 1804), Kaiser (bibl. Theol. Il. p. 160), 
Kuinoel, Fritzsche, Bengel, 7b. d. Alter d. 
Jiid. Proselytent. 1814. 

7 Schneckenburger, wu. d. Alter der Jiid. 
Proselytent. u. deren Zusammenst. m. d. joh. 
u. chr. Ritus, 1828; Paulus, exeg. Handb. I. p. 
307 ff. 

8 Gen. xxxv. 2; Ex. xix. 10; Num. xix. 7, 
19; 1 Sam. xvi. 5; Judith xii. 7. 

® Comp. Josephus, Antt. xviii. 5.2. See 
this passage of Josephus above on ver. 2. 
Without any reason has this meaning been 
discovered in it, that John viewed his 


78 THE GOSPEL OF MATTHEW. 


baptized person, as the perdvova, was to purify the whole man, corresponded 
with profound significance, and to this the specifically Christian view of the 
symbolic immersion and emersion afterwards connected itself? by an 
ethical necessity. — é£ouodo0y.] In the same way as in the case of the sin- 
offering,” and in general to be taken as a venerable pre-condition of divine 
grace and blessing, Ps. xxxii. 5, li. 1 ff. ; Ezra ix. 6; Dan. ix. 5. — The 
participle is not to be taken as if it were conditional (Fritzsche : st... con- 
Jiterentur”), as the subjection to this condition, in the case of every one 
who came to be baptized, is necessarily required as a matter of course ; 
but : they were baptized whilst they confessed, during the confession, which 
is conceived as connected with the act of baptism itself. Whether is it a 
summary or a specific confession which is intended? Both may have 
taken place, varying always according to the individuals and their relations, 
The compound,* however, expresses, as also in Acts xix. 18, Jas. v. 16, an 
open confession. 

Ver. 7. The Pharisees (from W195, separavit, the separated ones, dia rip é0e2o- 
mepicoolpycketav, ‘* on account of their excessive will-worship,”* received, be- 
sides the law, also tradition ; taught the doctrine of fate, without, however, 
denying the freedom of the will ; of immortality, and that in the case of 
pious persons, in pure bodies ; of good and evil angels, and were, in all the 
strictness of external righteousness, according to law and statute, the crafty, 
learned, patriotic, and powerful supporters of the degenerate orthodoxy. 
The Sadducees ® recognized merely the written law, and that not only of the 
Pentateuch, but of the whole of the O. T., although according te the strict 
exposition of the letter, and to the exclusion of tradition ; they denied the 
existence of higher spirits, of fate and personal immortality, and adhered toa 
strict code of morals ; they had less authority with the people than the exclu- 
sive orthodox Pharisees, against whom they formed a decided party of oppo- 
sition, but had much influence over men of rank and wealth. The strictly 
closed order of Hssenes, in its separation from the world and the temple, as well 
as in its ascetic self-satisfaction and self-sanctification, the quiet separatistic 
holy ones of the land, connected together by community of goods, and under 
obligation, besides, daily to perform holy lustrations, kept themselves far 
away from the movement evoked by John. — Observe that the article is not 
repeated before Zaddovk., because they are conceived as forming, along with the 


baptism as a@ means of covenant, by explain- 
ing Bamticpe ovvievac to mean: to wnite 
through or for baptism (Strauss, Keim, 
Hausrath). The meaning of the passage is 
rather: John commanded the Jews to be 
wise in the exercise of virtue, and so on 
(sapere, comp. Rom. iii. 11; 2 Cor. x. 12), by 
means of baptism. 

TROM, Vij othe. Dit. iil: 

2 Lev. xvi. 21 ff.; Num. v. 7. 

8 Josephus, Antt. viii. 4. 6; passages in 
Philo; see in Loesner. 

4 Epiphanius, Haer. i. 16. 


5 Epiphanius, Haer. i. 14: émovopagovar 


EavtTovs SadSovKalous SnGev ard Sukavocvvys THS 
emixAjgews Opuwmerys, ‘‘ They call themselves 
Sadducees, viz., from dikaiosune (righteous- 
ness), the surname cheering on.” The 
Jewish tradition derives it from the proper 
name Zadok. R. Nathan, ad Pirke Aboth, 1. 
8. The latter fs to be preferred, with 
Ewald, Geiger, Hitzig, and others; see 
Keim, Gesch. J. I. p. 275. Hausrath, Zeit- 
gesch. I. p. 118. That name, however, is to 
be understood as that of an old and distin- 
guished priestly family ; 2 Sam. vii. 17, xv. 
24; Ezek. xlviii. 11; 1 Mace. vii. 14. 


CHAP IED, Fe 79 


Pharisees, one unworthy category.’ — ézi] not contra (Olearius), which would 
be quite opposed to the context, but ¢elic, in order to be baptized ; comp. 
Luke xxiii. 48. Why should the Pharisees and Sadducees not also have 
come to baptism, since they shared with the people the hope of the Messiah, 
and must have felt also on their part the extraordinary impression made by 
the appearance of John, and the excitement awakened by it, and, in keep- 
ing with their moral conceit, would easily enough have compounded with 
the confession of sins? It is, however, already probable @ priori, and 
certain, by means of Luke vii. 80, that they, at least so far as the majority 
were concerned, did not allow themselves to be baptized, although they 
had come with this intention, but were repelled in terror by the preaching 
of repentance and punishment, ver. 8 ff. — There exists, therefore, no varia- 
tion between this and Luke vii. 30 ; the Pharisees and Sadducees are no 
addition by Matthew (Ewald, Holtzmann), and neither is Matthew to be 
blamed for committing a historical mistake, occasioned by John i. 24 
(Schneckenburger, Bleek), nor is Luke to be charged with want of origi- 
nality in this section (de Wette). But the former relates with more minute- 
ness than Luke (iii. 7: . dyAowc) in separating the persons in 
question from the mass along with whom they came. — yevrviyara éyidvor| 
cunning, malignant men! xii. 34, xxiii. 33; Isa. xiv. 29, lix. 5 ; Ps. lviii. 
5.°?— tHe peArobone opyzc] is to be understood of the divine wrath which is 
revealed at the Messianic judgment (Rom. ii. 5; 1 Thess. i. 10). The com- 
mon belief of the Jews referred this to the heathen.* John, however, to the 
godless generally, who would not repent. The wrath of God, however, 
established as a unity in the holy nature of the divine love as its inseparable 
correlate, is not the punishment itself, but the holy emotion of absolute dis- 
pleasure with him who opposes His gracious will, and from this the punish- 
ment proceeds as a necessary manifestation of righteousness. The revelation 
of the divine wrath is not limited to the last judgment (Rom. i. 18 ; 1 Thess. 
ii. 16 ; Luke xxi. 23), but in it attains its consummation. Comp. Rom. i. 
18 and Eph. ii. 3, and so on, especially Ritschl, de tra Dei,* 1859 ; Bar- 
tholomaei in the Jahrb. f. deutsche Theol. 1861, II. p. 256 ff. ; Weber, vom 
Zorne Gottes, 1862. — gvyeiv a6] is, like ]) 73 (Isa. xlviii. 20, xxiv. 18), 
constructio praegnans : to flee away from, xxiii. 33; Mark xvi. 8; John 
x. 11.° The infinitive aorist designates the activity as momentary, setting 
forth the point of time when the wrath breaks forth, in which the flight 
also is realized. Meaning of the question: Nobody can have instructed you, 
that you should escape. Comp. xxiii. 33 : ré¢ gbyyre. 


TOLC 


1 “Nempe repetitur articulus, ubi distine- citer Deo fidem denegantes finem ejus sum- 


tio logica aut cmphaticaita postulat,” Dis- 
sen, ad Dem. de cor. p. 574. 

2 Wetstein on the passage. Comp. Dem. 
799.4: muxpov Kai Ex thy diow avdpwror, ‘a 
bitter man and a viper as to his nature.” 

3 Bertholdt, Christol. pp. 203 ff., 223 ff. 

4 Who determines the conception, p. 24, 
thus: “‘Certum argumentum justitiae divi- 
nae ab humana diversae, quatenus valet ad 
defendendum adversus homines contuma- 


mum et absolutum, per Christum cum ge- 
nere humano communicatum,” “‘Itisa sure 
argunent of divine justice being different 
from human, since it avails for defending, 
against men stubbornly denying faith in 
God, its complete and absolute end, im- 
parted through Christ to the human race.” 

5 Hom. Od. xii. 120: duyéew Kapristov an’ 
airys, Xen, Mem, ii, 6, 81; Plat. Phaed. p. 
62 D. 


80 THE GOSPEL OF MATTHEW. 


Ver. 8. 0iv] Deduction from what precedes. In your impenitent condition 
you cannot escape from the wrath ; proceed then to exhibit that morality of con- 
duct which is appropriate to the change of mind as its result. Instead of your 
unrepentant condition, I require of you a practical repentance, the hindrance 
and opposition to which arises from your overweening conceit as children 
of Abraham (ver. 9). What John here requires applied, indeed, to the peo- 
ple in general, but was especially appropriate to their scholastic leaders.— 
Tie weTtavoiac is governed by aé&vov (Acts xxvi. 20) ; on Kaprov roreiv, like NWY 
‘15 (occurring likewise in Greek writers), borrowed from fruit-trees ;! kapr. 
is collective, Gal. v. 22 ; Eph. v. 9; Phil. i. 11. 

Ver. 9. Adgnre] Do not allow yourselves to suppose, do not say to yourselves, 
1 Cor. xi. 16 ; Phil. iii. 4. — Aéyewv év éavtoic 1373 JON, cogitare secum. It ob- 
jectively represents reflection as the language of the mind. Ps. iv. 5, x. 6, 
xiv. 1; Matt. ix. 21 ; Luke iii. 8, vii. 49.?— marépa . . . ’ABpadu] The Jews 
of the common sort and their party leaders believed that the descendants 
of Abraham would, as such, become participators of salvation in the Mes- 
siah’s kingdom, because Abraham’s righteousness would be reckoned as 
theirs.* —érv divara:, x.7.A.| God is able, notwithstanding your descent from 
Abraham, to exclude you from the Messiah’s salvation ; and, on the other hand, 
to create and bring forth out of these stones, which lie here around on the bank 
of the Jordan, such persons as are GENUINE children of Abraham.‘ It is an 
anticipation, however, to find the calling of the heathen here indicated. It 
follows first from this axiom. 

Ver. 10. Already, however (it isthen high time), 7s the decision near at hand, 
according to which the unworthy are excluded from Messiah’s kingdom, and 
are consigned to Géhenna, — In #7 is contained the thought that the hearers 
did not yet expect this state of things ; see Baeumlein, Partik. p. 139 ; the 
presents ixxéxterac and BaArerac denote what is to happen at once and certainly, 
with demonstrative definiteness, not the general idea: is accustomed to be 
hewn down, against which ody is decisive (im answer to Fritzsche), the mean- 
ing of which is: ‘‘that, as a consequence of this, the axe, etc., every tree 
will be, and so on.” ® 

Ver. 11. Yet it is not I who will determine the admission or the exclu- 
sion, but He who is greater than I. In Luke iii. 16 there is a special reason 
assigned for this discourse, in keeping with the use of a more developed tra- 
dition on the part of the later redactor. — eic¢ wetavoray| denotes the telic ref- 
erence of the baptism (comp. xxviii. 19), which imposes an obligation to 


petavora. To the characteristic év idate ei¢ wetdvoray stands opposed the 


1 Comp. vii. 17 f. al.,; Kxapmromoids, Eur. 
Rhes. 964. 

2 Delitzsch, Psych. p. 180 [E. T. 213]. Comp. 
A€yetv mpos Eavtov in Plat. Phaed. p. 88 C, 

3 Sanhedrin, f. 901: ond uw Osan 535 
San p75 Dore Bereschith, #. xviii. 7. 
Wetstein on the passage. Bertholdt, Chris- 
tol. p. 206 ff. Comp. in the N. T., especially 
John viii. 33 ff. 

4That is, as Euth. Zigabenus strikingly 


expresses it: ot Tas apetas avTod prmovpevor 
Kal THS avTHs avTS Katakovpevor pepidos ev TH 
Bacireta Tov ovpavov, “Those imitating 
his virtues and counted worthy of the same 
lot with him in the kingdom of heaven.” 
Comp. Rom. iy., ix. 6 ff. ; Gal. iv. ; John viii. 
39 f. 

5 See upon the present, Dissen, ad Pind. 
Nem. iv. 39 f., p. 401. 


CHAP, Tir) 120) 81 


higher characteristic év rvetuarte ayiw «x. rupi, the two elements of which fo- 
gether antithetically correspond to that ‘‘baptism by water unto repent- 
ance ;”’ see subsequently. — év is, agreeably to the conception of Barrivo, 
not to be taken as instrumental, but as in, in the meaning of the 
element, in which baptism takes place.*—6 dé driow pov épyduevoc| that 
is, the Messiah. His coming as such is always brought forward with 
great emphasis in Mark and Luke. The present here also denotes the near 
and definite beginning of the future. — icyupér. pov éotiv] In what special 
relation he is more powerful is stated afterwards by airidc iuac Barticer, 
k.T.2. —ov ovk eli, x.t.4.| In comparison with Him, I am too humble to be fit- 
ted to be one of His lowest slaves. To bear the sandals of their masters 
(Bacrdca), that is, to bring and take them away, as well as to fasten them 
on or to take them off (the latter in Mark and Luke), was amongst the Jews, 
Greeks, and Romans the business of slaves of the lowest rank.? — airdéc| He 
and no other, i. 21. — iuac] was spoken indeed to the Pharisees and Saddu- 
cees ; but it is not these only who are meant, but the people of Israel in 
general, who were represented to the eye of the prophet in them, and in 
the multitude who were present. — év wv. dy. x. rupi| in the Holy Spirit, those 
who have repented ; in jire (by which that of Gehenna is meant), the unre- 
pentant. Both are figuratively designated as Barrifery, in so far as both are 
the two opposite sides of the Messianic lustration, by which the one are 
sprinkled with the Holy Ghost (Acts i. 5), the others with hell-fire, as per- 
sons baptized are with water. It is explained as referring to the jire of 
everlasting punishment, after Origen and several Fathers, by Kuinoel, Schott,* 
Fritzsche, Neander, de Wette, Paulus, Ammon, B. Crusius, Arnoldi, Hof- 
mann, Bleek, Keim, Volkmar, Hengstenberg, Weber,* Gess.° But, after 
Chrysostom and most Catholic expositors, others (Erasmus, Beza, Calvin, 
Clericus, Wetstein, Storr, Eichhorn, Kauffer, Olshausen, Gléckler, Kuhn, 
Ewald,) understand it of the jire of the Holy Spirit, which inflames and puri- 
Jies the spirits of men.® These and other explanations, which take rvpi as 
not referring to the punishments of Gehenna, are refuted by John’s own de- 
cisive explanation in ver. 12 : 7d dé ayvpov xatakatoer rvpi acBéoTtw. It is 
wrong, accordingly, to refer the zvpi to the fiery tongues in Acts ii." The 
omission of kai rvpi is much too weakly attested to delete it, with Matthaci 
and Rinck.$ 

Ver. 12. And jire, I say ; for what a separation will it make !— ov] 
assigns a reason, like our : He whose [German, Er, dessen].° It is not, how- 
ever, as Grotius, Bengel, Storr, Kuinoel think, pleonastic, but the literal 
translation is to be closely adhered to : whose fanis in his hand ; that is, he 
who has his (to him peculiar, comp. ver. 4) fan in his hand ready for use. 


1 Mark i. 6; 1 Cor. x. 2; 2 Kings v. 14; 
Polyb. v. 47. 2: Bamriopevor év tots TéApact 5 
Hom. 0d. ix. 392. 

2 See Wetstein, Rosenmiiller, Morgent. in 


6 Comp. Isa. iv. 4. 

7Euth. Zigabenus, Maldonatus, Elsner, 
Er. Schmid, Bengel, Ebrard. 

8 Zucubr. crit. p. 248. See Griesbach, 


loc. ; comp. Talmud. Kiddusch. xxii. 2. 
3 Opusce, IT. p. 198. 
* Vom Zorne Gottes, p. 219 f. 
5 Christi Vers. u. Werk, I. p. 810. 


Comm. crit. p. 25 f. 
®See Ellendt, 
Kiihner, II. p. 939. 


Lex. Soph. Il. p. 371; 


82 THE, GOSPEL OF MATTHEW. 


Comp. LXX. Isa. ix. 5. According to Fritzsche, év rq yerp? abroi is epexe- 
getical : ‘‘cujus erit ventilabrum, sc. in manu ejus.” But such epexegeti- 
cal remarks, which fall under the point of view of Appositio partitiva, stand, 
as they actually occur, in the same case with the general word, which they 
define more minutely (0% rd rrbov, tH¢ yerpoc abTov).1— a2wva] ddwc,? in Greek 
writers commonly after the Attic declension, is the same as ]14, a circular 
firmly-trodden place upon the field itself, where the grain is either trod- 
den out by oxen, or thrashed out by thrashing machines drawn by oxen.* 
The floor is cleansed in this way, that the seed grains and the pounded straw 
and similar refuse are not allowed to lie upon it indiscriminately mingled 
together, in the state in which the threshing has left this unclean condition 
of the floor, but the grain and refuse are separated from each other in order 
to be brought to the place destined for them. In the figure, the jloor, 
which belongs to the Messiah, is not the church (Fathers and many others), 
nor mankind (de Wette), nor the Jewish nation (B. Crusius), but,. because 
the place of the Messiah’s activity must be intended (Ewald), and that, 
according to the national determination of the idea of the Baptist, the holy 
land, as the proper sphere of the work of the Messiah, not the world in gen- 
eral (Bleek), as would have to be assumed according to the Christian fulfil- 
ment of the idea. In accordance with this view, we must neither, with 
Zeger, Fischer, Kuinoel, de Wette, explain +r. daova, according to the 
alleged Hebrew usage (Job xxxix. 12; Ruth ill. 2), as the grain upon the 
floor ; nor, with Fritzsche, regard the cleansing as effected, removendo inde 
Srumentum, which is an act that does not follow wntil the floor has been 
cleansed. The dvaxafapifew, to purify thoroughly, which is not preserved 
anywhere except in Luke ii. 17, designates the cleansing from one end to 
the other ; in classical writers d:axafaiperv.* — arobjxny| place for storing up, 
magazine. The grain stores (oiréBodv, Polyb. ii. 100, 4 ; Oycavpoi cirov, 
Strabo, xii. p. 862 ; ovrodéxn, Pollux) were chiefly dry subterranean vaults.° 
— &yvpov] not merely chaff in the narrower sense of the word (}9), but all 
those portions of the stalk and ear which contain no grain, which are torn in 
pieces by the threshing, and remain over (]2)).6 These were used as fuel.” 
-— The sense, apart from figurative language, is: The Messiah will receive 
into His kingdom those who are found worthy (comp. xiii. 30) ; but upon the 
unworthy He will inflict in full the everlasting punishments of Gehenna. 
Comp. Mal. iii. 19.—dcBéorw] which is not quenched.* Not, therefore : 
which is not extinguished ti// all is consumed (Paulus, Bleek). 


Remark,—John i. 26 is not to be regarded as parallel with Matt. iii. 12, for, 
according to John, the Baptist speaks after the baptism of Jesus, and to the 


1 See Eph. iii. 5, and remarks in loc. 6 Herod. iv. 72:3; Xen. Oéc.. xvii. 1, vi. f.5 

2 Xen. Oec. xviii. 6; Dem. 1040. 23. Geni =xiv. 25.- Ex. ve we 

3 Keil, Arch. II. p. 114; Robinson, III. p. 7 Mishna tract, Schabbath ii. 1; Parah. iy. 
370. Similarly in Greek writers; see Her- 3. Paulsen, vom Ackerbau der Morgenl. p. 
mann, Privatalterth. xv. 6, Xxiv. 3. 150. : 

4 Plat. Pol. iii. pp. 399 E. 411 D; Alciphr. ® Hom. Z/. xvii. 89; Pind. Jsthm. iii. 72; 
iii. 26. Dion. Hal. Anét. i. 76, corresponding to the 


5 Jahn, Archdol. I. 1, p. 376. thing portrayed ; comp. Isa. Ixvi. 24. 


CHAP.) Thin hb, 83 


members of the Sanhedrim. And doubtless he had often given expression to 
his testimony regarding Christ, who was the point which the prophet had in 
view in his preaching of repentance and baptism.—That he is not yet defi- 
nitely designated in Matthew as Elijah (Luke i. 17; Matt. xi. 10, 14), is rightly 
regarded as an evidence of the truth of the gospel narrative, which has not 
anticipated the subsequently developed representation of John. To relegate, 
however, the announcement of the Messiah from the preaching of the Baptist 
into the realm of legend (Strauss) is a mockery of the entire evangelical testi- 
mony, and places it below the narrative of Josephus, which was squared 
according to the ideas of political prudence (Anit. xviii. 5, 2). 


Ver. 13. Tére] at that time, when John thus preached the advent of the 
Messiah, and baptized the people, vv. 1-12. — aod r. Tadcd.] See ii. 23. It 
belongs to rapay. The position is different in ii. 1. — rod Barricf. br’ ator] 
Jesus wished to be baptized by John (genitive, as in ii. 13), but not in the 
personal feeling of sinfulness,’ or as the bearer of the guilt of others ;? not 
even because He, through His.connection of responsibility with the unclean 
people, was unclean according to the Levitical law (Lange), or because He 
believed that He was obliged to regard the collective guilt of the nation as 
His guilt (Schenkel) ; just as little in order to separate Himself inwardly from 
the sins of the nation (Baumgarten), or make it certain that His cap£ dofeveiac 
should not be opposed to the life of the Spirit,* or because the meaning of 
the baptism is : the declaration that He is subjected to death for the human 
race (Kbrard) ; not evento bring in here the divine decision as to His Messi- 
ahship (Paulus), or to lay the foundation for the faith of others in Him, so 
far as baptism is a symbol of the regeneration of those who confess Him,* 
or in order to honor the baptism of John by His example,® or to bind 
Himself to the observance of the law ; ® or because He had to conduct Him- 
self, before the descent of the Spirit, merely as an Israelite in general. 
The opinion also of Schleiermacher, that the baptism of Jesus was the sym- 
bolical beginning of His announcement of Himself, and, at the same time, a 
recognition of John’s mission, is foreign to the text. The true meaning ap- 
pears from ver. 15, namely, because Jesus was consciously certain that He must, 
agrecably to God’s will, subject Himself to the baptism of His forerunner, in or- 
der (vv. 16, 17) to receive the Messianic consecration ; that is, the divine decla- 
ration that He was the Messiah,’ and thereby to belong from that moment solely 
and entirely to this great vocation. The Messianic consciousness is not to be 
regarded as first commencing in Him at the baptism, so that He would he 
inwardly born, by means of baptism, to be the Messiah, and would become 
conscious of His divine destination, to full purification and regeneration as 
the new duty of His life ; but the rpérov éoriv jyiv, ver. 15, presupposes a 
clear certainty regarding His vocation ; and John’s relation to the same, as 
in general the existence of that consciousness, must have been the necessary 
result of His own consciousness, which had attained the maturity of human 


1 B. Bauer, Strauss, Pécaut. 5 Calvin, Kuinoel, Keim. 
2 Riggenbach, Krafft. 6 Hofmann, Krabbe, Osiander. 
3 Hofmann, Weissag. und Erfiill. I. p. 82. 7 iva avadetx079 To Aa®, ‘That he might be 


4 Ammon, Z. J. I. p. 268. exhibited to the people,’ Euth. Zigabenus. 


84 . THE GOSPEL OF MATTHEW. 


development, that He was the Son of God. But that baptism, to which He 
felt certain that He must submit Himself, was to be for Him the divine ordi- 
nation to the Messiahship. It is clear, according to this, that His baptism was 
quite different from that of others, so far as in Him, as a sinless being, there 
could be no confession of sin ; but the lustrative character of the baptism 
could only have the meaning, that from that moment He was taken away 
from all His previous relations of life which belonged to the earthly sphere, 
and became, altogether and exclusively, the Holy One of God, whom the 
Father consecrated by the Spirit. Although he was this God-sanctified One 
from the beginning, yet now, as He was aware that this was the will of God, 
He has, by the assumption of baptism, solemnly bound and devoted Himself 
to the full execution of His unique destiny,—a devotion which was already 
more than a vow (Keim), because it was the actual entrance into the Messi- 
anic path of life, which was to receive at the very threshold its divine legit- 
imation for all future time. In so doing, He could, without any conscious- 
ness of guilt (xi. 29), associate Himself; in all humility (xi. 29), with 
the multitude of those whom the feeling of guilt impelled to baptism ; 
because in His own consciousness there was still the negation of absolute 
moral goodness, to which He, long afterwards, expressly gave so decided 
expression (xix. 17). [See note III., p. 89, seq. ] 

Ver. 14. According to John i. 33, it was revealed to the Baptist that He 
upon whom he should see the Spirit descending was the Messiah. It was 
accordingly not until this moment that the recognition of Jesus as the Mes- 
siah entered his mind ; and therefore, in the Gospel of John, he says of the 
time which preceded this moment : kayo ov« ydscv aitov. The passage before 
us is not in contradiction with this, for the recognition of the Messiahship of 
Jesus does not yet lie at its foundation, but the prophetic anticipation of the 
same, which on the approach of Jesus, as that solemn decision was about to 
begin through the revelation of the ojuciov, seized the soul of the Baptist in- 
voluntarily and miraculously, and yet psychologically, in keeping with the 
spiritual rapport prepared by revelation. Comp. Luther: ‘‘he scents the 
Spirit.” Accordingly, we are not to assume in our passage either a recog- 
nition only of higher excellence (Hess, Paulus, Hofmann), or a contradic- 
tion with John (Strauss, de Wette, Keim), or, after Liicke, Holtzmann, and 
Scholten, that the oldest and shortest tradition of Matthew contained mere- 
ly vv. 16, 17, while vv. 14, 15 were a later addition of the complete Mat- 
thew,’ which Hilgenfeld seeks to support from the silence of Justin regard- 





1 According to Epiphanius, Haer. xxx. 13, 
the Gospel according to the Hebrews con- 
tained the conversation, although with em- 
bellishments, but placed it after the baptism. 
The want of originality of this narrative in 
itself (in answer to Schneckenburger, Hil- 
genfeld) already shows its apocryphal and 
extravagant character. The correctness 
of its position has found favour, indeed, 
with Bleek (p. 179 f., and in the Stud. w. 
Kit. 18338, p. 436), Usteri (in the same, 1829, 


p. 446), and Liicke, and Keim also, at the 
expense of our Gospel; but, after what has 
been said above, without any reason, as 
the want of agreement between Matthew 
and John is only apparent, and is not to be 
removed by changing the meaning of the 
simple and definite ov« dew avtov. See on 
John i. 31. The Wolfenbiittel Fragmentist 
(vom Zwecke Jesu, p. 133 ff.) has notoriously 
misused John i. 31 to assert that Jesus and 
John had long been acquainted with each 


CHAP: Til.) 1d; 85 


ing the refusal of the Baptist, whilst Keim gives, indeed, the preference to 
the statement of Matthew over that of John, but still allows it to be very 
problematical. — dvexaAvev] Stronger than the simple verb. The word (which 
does not occur elsewhere in the N. T. nor in the LXX., yet in Judith iv. 7, 
xii. 7, and frequently in the classical writers) is selected, in keeping with the 
serious opposition of the astonished John. The imperfect is descriptive, and, 
indeed, so much s0, that ‘‘vere incipit actus, sed ob impedimenta caret 
eventu, ‘‘truly it begins actions, but on account of hindrances is lacking in 
result.”*? John actually repelled Jesus, and did not baptize Him at once, but 
only when the latter had made representations to the contrary effect. — éo 
xpeiav, k.7.A.].7 Thus spoke John in the truest feeling of his own lowliness 
and sinfulness, in the presence of the long-longed for One, the first recogni- 
tion of whom suddenly thrilled him. —kai od épyn rpd¢ pe;| A question 
indicative of the astonishment with which the Baptist, although he had re- 
ceived the divine declaration, John i. 33, was yet seized, through the 
impression made on him by the presence of the Lord. Moreover, this dis- 
course necessarily excludes the idea that he too connected the baptism of 
Jesus with the profession of a confession of His sins. Yet the apocryphal 
Praedicatio Pauli, according to Cyprian,* had already made Jesus deliver a 
confession of sin ; in the Hvangelium sec. Hebraeos, on the other hand, 
quoted by Jerome, c. Pel. ili. 1, Jesus answers the request of His mother and 
His brethren to let Himself be baptized along with them : ‘‘ Quid peccavi, 
ut vadam et baptizer ab eo ? nisi forte hoc ipsum quod dixi ignorantia est.” 
Ver. 15. "Apri now, suffer it just now. The antithesis of time is here not 
that of the past (see on Gal. i. 9), but of the future, as in John xiii. 37; 1 
Cor. xiii. 12.4— The meaning : ‘‘ sine paulisper” (Fritzsche),° is not suffi- 
cient. Schneckenburger, p. 122, regards the a¢ec as having been inappro- 
priately transferred from the Gospel according to the Hebrews. Errone- 
ously, as it there belongs (in the sense : let it remain) to the apocryphal 
addition, according to which John, after the baptism of Jesus, prays the 
latter to baptize him ; and Jesus answers : ddec, re ovTwe éoti Tpérov TANPW- 
Ojvac ravta.® This apocryphal outgrowth is manifestly a farther spinning 
out of the tradition, as recorded in Matthew. Several of the Fathers like- 
wise inferred from dpr:, in our verse, that John was afterwards baptized by 
Jesus. — juiv| to thee and to me. To refer it merely to Jesus (Chrysostom, 
Theophylact, Euth. Zigabenus, Gléckler), or, in the jirst place to Jesus 
(de Wette, Bleek), is opposed to the context. See ver. 14. — racav dixavo- 
obvav| all righteousness, all which as duty it is obligatory on us to do.’ If I 


other, and had come to an understanding 
to work to each other’s hands, but to con- 
ceal this from the people. 

1 Schaefer, ad Hur. Phoen. 81. 
Il. 1, p. 123. 

2 Grotius: Si alter nostrum omnino bapti- 
zandus sit,ego potius abs te, ut dignissimo, bap- 
tismum petere debui, ‘Tf only one of us is to 
be baptized, I ought rather to seek baptism 
from thee, as the most worthy.” 

3 Opp. p. 142, Rigalt (Credner, Beitr. I. p. 


Kiihner, 


360 ff.) 

4 Chrysostom : ov dunvexds tadta Eorat, aAN 
beer pe ev TovToLs ols emLOvuets* apTe mévTOL 
Uropevov TovTo, ** These things shall not per- 
petually be, but thou shalt see me in those 
things which thou desirest ; now, however, 
bear this patiently.” 

5 Comp. de Wette : “ let it be for once.”’ 

6 Epiphanius, Haer. xxx. 13. 

7 Ch. F. Fritzsche in Fritzschior. Opusc. p. 
81. Comp. mAnp. evoeBevav, 4 Mace. xiy. 15. 


86 THE GOSPEL OF MATTHEW. 


do not allow myself to be baptized, and thou dost not baptize me, there re- 
mains something unfulfilled (therefore, oitw) which ought to be done by us, 
in accordance with the divine will ; then satisfaction is not made by us to 
all righteousness. * 

Ver. 16. Ei@ic] which cannot belong to avepy6. (Maldonatus, Grotius, 
B. Crusius), nor can it be referred to Barricbei¢ by supposing a hyperbaton 
(Fritzsche). Matthew would have written, kai cific Barriobeic. It belongs 
to avé3y, beside which it stands : after Hewas baptized, He went up straight- 
way, etc. This straightway was understood at once as a matter of course, 
but does not belong, however, merely to the descriptive, but to the cirewm- 
stantial style of the narrative, setting forth the rapid succession (of events). 
— dvedyOnoav abré of oipavoi] designates neither a clearing wp of the heavens 
(Paulus), nor a thunderstorm quickly discharging itself (Kuinoel, Ammon), 
since the poetic descriptions, as in Sil. It. i. 585 ff., are quite foreign * to our 
simple historical narrative ; as, moreover, neither in the Gospel according to 
the Hebrews, nor in Epiphanius,* is a thunderstorm meant. Only an actual 
parting of the heavens, out of which opening the Spirit came down, can be 
intended. Ezek. i. 1; Johni. 52; Rev. iv. 1; Acts vii. 56; Isa. Ixiv. 1. 
—air@ does not refer to the Baptist,° since ver. 16 begins a new portion of 
the history, in which John is no longer the subject. It refers to Jesus, and 
is the dative of purpose. To Him the heavens open ; for it was on Him that 
the. Spirit was to descend. Comp. Vulgate. —eide] Who? not John, but 
Jesus, without ér’ airév standing for é’ airéyv.° The Gospel according to 
the Hebrews clearly referred cide to Jesus, with which Mark i. 10 also decid- 
edly agrees.” — dcei repiotepav| The element of comparison is interpreted by 
modern writers not as referring to the shape of the visibly descending Spirit, 
but to the manner of descent, where partly the swiftness (Fritzsche), partly 
the soft, gentle movement (Bleek) and activity (Neander), and the like, have 
been imagined as referred to. But as all the four evangelists have precisely 
the same comparison (Mark i. 10; Luke iii. 22 ; Johni. 32), which, as a 
mere representation of the manner of the descent, would be just as unessen- 
tial as it would be an indefinite and ambiguous comparison ; as, farther, 
Luke expressly says the Spirit descended, cwwarikd cider doel tepiorepa, where, 
by the latter words, the cwuwar. eidec is defined more precisely *—so that in- 
terpretation appears as a groundless attempt to lessen the miraculous ele- 


1 Comp. on maoav the plural expression 
Scxacocvvac in Sir. Xliv. 10; Job ii. 14. 

2 See Kiihner, II. 2, p. 642. 

3 See Drackenborch, ad Sil. Jt. iii. 1386; 
Heyne, ad Virg. Aen. iii. 198. 

4 Haer. xxx. 13, nor in Justin, c. Tryph. 
88. In the Gospel according to the He- 
brews : wepteAap ev Tov Torov dws peya. JUS- 
tin : KateA@dvtos Tod "Incod emt To Vdwp Kai mop 
avyipdy ev To "lopdaryn, *‘A great light shone 
round the place,” Justin: ‘‘ Jesus, having 
gone down to the water, a fire also was 
kindled in the Jordan.” 

5 Beza, Heumann, Bleek, Kern, Krabbe, 


de Wette, Baur. 

6 Kuinoel; Kitihner, II. 1, p. 489 f.; Bleek 
on the passage. 

7 Schmidt in the Jahrb. f. D. Th. 1869, p. 
655, erroneously says: If Jesus were the 
subject, é€¢’ avrovy must necessarily have 
been put. See Buttmann, newt. Gr. p. 97 f. 
Bae Was abl sei 

® Comp. the Gospel according to the He- 
brews in Epiphanius, Haer. xxx. 138: eide, 
namely, Jesus, Td mveva Tov Peov TO ayLov Ev 
eldev meptotepas kateAPovons 3 also Justin, c. 
Tr. 88. 


GHAR! Ih. LY: 87 


ment, and only the old explanation,’ that the form of a dove actually appeared, 
can be received as the correct one. So also Paulus (who, however, thought 
of a real dove which accidentally appeared at the time !), de Wette, Kuhn,’ 
Theile,* Keim, Hilgenfeld, who compares 4 Esdr. v. 26. The symbolic 
element of this divine oyyeiov (see remarks after ver. 17) rests just in its ap- 
pearance in the form of a dove which descends. 

Ver. 17. @ovy . . . Aéyouca] Here neither is éyévero to be supplied, after 
Luke iii. 22 ; nor does the participle stand for the finite tense. See on ii. 
18. But literally : and lo, there, a voice from heaven which spoke.*— 6 ayarnréc|* 
dilectus, not unicus (Loesner, Fischer, Michaelis, and others). The article, 
however, does not express the strengthened conception (dilectissimus), as 
Wetstein and Rosenmiiller assert, but is required by grammar ; for the em- 
phasis lies on 6 vid¢ xov, to which the characteristic attribute is added by 
way of distinction.*° Exactly so in the same voice from heaven, xvii. 5. — 
év © evddxyoa] Hebraistic construction imitative of 2 /5M.°—The aorist de- 
notes : in whom I have had good pleasure (Eph. i. 4 ; John xvii. 24), who has 
become the object of my good pleasure.*. The opposite is éuicyoa, Rom. ix. 
13 5 7xOype Kpoviov, Hom. Jl. xx. 806.—The divine voice solemnly proclaims 
Jesus to be the Messiah, 6 vide wou ; which designation, derived from Ps. ii. 
7,° is in the divine and also in the Christian consciousness not merely the 
name of an office, but has at the same time a metaphysical meaning, having 
come forth from the Father’s being, xara rvetua, Rom. i. 4, containing the 
Johannine idea, 6 Adyoc capf éyévero (according to Matt. i. 20, Luke i. 35, 
also the origin of the corporeity). That the passage in Isa. Ixii. 1 (comp. 
Matt. xii. 18) lies at the basis of the expression of that voice, either alone 
(Hilgenfeld) or with others (Keim), has this against it, that 6 vide wou is the 
characteristic point, which is wanting in Isaiah /.c., and that, moreover, the 
other words in the passage do not specifically correspond with those in 
Isaiah. 


Rrmarx.—The fact of itself that Jesus was baptized by John, although left 
doubtful by Fritzsche, admitted only as possible by Weisse, who makes it rather 
to be a baptism of the Spirit, while relegated by Bruno Bauer to the workshop 
of later religious reflection, stands so firmly established by the testimony of the 
Gospels that it has been recognized even by Strauss, although more on @ priori 
grounds (L. J. I. p. 418). He rejects, however, the more minute points as unhis- 
torical, while Keim sees in it powerful and speaking figures of spiritual oceur- 


1 Origen and the Fathers in Suicer, 7hes. 
8.0. meptotepa, Euth. Zigabenus, Erasmus, 
Luther. 

22. J: 1. p.819. 

3 Zur Biogr. Jesu, p. 48. 

* Comp. xvii. 5 ; Luke v. 12, xix. 20; Acts 
Vili. 27 ; Rev. iv. 1, vi. 2, vii. 9. 

® Comp. Kiihner, II. 1, p. 529 f. 

® See Winer, p. 218 [E. T. 291]. Fritzsche, 
ad Rom. Il. p. 871 (Polybius ii. 12. 13 does 
not apply here); frequently in LXX. and 
Apocrypha. 

7See Hermann, ad Viger. p. 746; Bern- 


hardy, p. 381 f. ; Kiihner, II. 1, p. 134 f. 

8 In the Gospel according to the Hebrews 
the words of the voice ran, according to 
Epiphanius, Hae. xxx. 13: aU pov el 6 vids 
ayamntos, év coi evSoKnTa Kat TaALY Ey ONME- 
pov yeyevynxa oe. Soalso substantially in Jus- 
tin, c. Tr. 88. Manifestly an addition from 
later tradition, which had become current 
from the well-known passage in Ps. ii. 
Nevertheless, Hilgenfeld regards that form 
of the heavenly voice as the more original. 
See on the opposite side, Weisse, Hvange- 
lienfrage, p. 190 ff. 


88 THE GOSPEL OF MATTHEW. 


rences which then took place on the Jordan ; Schenkel again introduces thoughts 
which are very remote ; and Weizsiicker recognizes in it the representation of 
the installation of Jesus into His vocation as Ruler, and that by the transforma- 
tion of a vision of Jesus into an external fact, and refers the narrative to later 
communications probably made by the Lord to His disciples. The historical 
reality of the more minute details is to be distinguished from the legendary 
embellishments of them. The first is to be derived from John i. 32-34, accord- 
ing to which the Baptist, after an address vouchsafed to him by God, in which © 
was announced to him the descent of the Spirit as the Messianic oneiov of the 
person in question, saw the Holy Spirit in the form of a dove descend upon 
Jesus, and abide upon Him, and, in accordance with this, delivered the testi- 
mony that Jesus was the Son of God. The seeing of the Baptist, and the tes- 
timony which he delivered regarding it, is accordingly to be considered as based 
on John i. 32-34, as the source of the tradition preserved in the Synoptics, in 
the simplest form in Mark. According to Ewald, it was in spirit that Jesus saw 
(namely, the Spirit, like a dove, consequently ‘‘in all its liveliness and fulness,”” 
according to Isa. xi. 2) and heard what He Himself probably related at a later 
time, and that the Baptist himself also observed in Jesus, as He rose up out of 
the water, something quite different from what he noticed in other men, and 
distinguished Him at once by the utterance of some extraordinary words. 
But, considering the deviation of John’s narrative from that of the Synopties, 
and the connection in which John stood to Jesus and the Baptist, there exists 
no reason why we should not find the original fact in John.! Moreover, that 
seeing of the Spirit in the form of a dove is a spiritual act, taking place in a 
vision (Acts vii. 55, x. 10 ff.), but which was transformed by the tradition of 
the apostolic age into an external manifestation, as the testimony of John 
(John i. 34), which was delivered on the basis of this seeing of his, was changed 
into a heavenly voice (which therefore is not to be taken as Bath Kol, least of 
all ‘‘as in the still reverberation of the thunder and in the gentle echo of the 
air,” as Ammon maintains, J. J. p. 273 f.). The more minute contents of the 
heavenly voice were suggested from Ps. ii. 7, to which also the old extension 
of the legend in Justin, ce. Tryph. 88, and in the Lv. sec. Hebr. in Epiph. Haer. 
xxx. 13, points. Consequently the appearance of the dove remains as an act- 
ual occurrence, but as taking place in vision,’ as also the opening of the heavens. 
Origen designates the thing as Qewpia vonzeiKy, ‘‘a beholding with the 


mind (or intelligence).’’ 4 


1 Comp. Neander, Z. J. p. 83 f.; Sckleier- 
macher, p. 144 ff.; Ewald, Gesch. Chr. p. 280f. 
2 Orig. c. Cels. i, 4348. Theodore of Mop- 
suestia: ev elder meptotepas yevouéevyn TOU 
mvevpatos Ka0080s ov Tagity WhOn Tols TapovaLY, 
aAAG KaTa TWAa mvEeUMaTLKHY Oewpiav 
ah Love TO 'Iwavypn, Kabws Eos Hv ToLs mpod- 
HTALS ev Leow TOAAGY TA Tat adewpyra BA€met 
. OmTagia yap Hv, ov dats TO hatydpevor, 
‘“The descent of the Spirit in the form of a 
dove was not seen by all those present, but 
in accordance with a spiritual vision it was 
seen by John alone, just as it was custom- 
ary with the prophets, in the midst of 
many, to see the things not seen by all... 
for the phenomenon was a vision, not na- 


Finally, the question’ whether before the time of 


ture:”” 

3 Jerome: “Non reseratione elemento- 
rum sed spiritualibus oculis, ‘‘ Not by an 
opening of the elements, but with spiritual 
eyes.” 

4 Comp. Grotius, Neander, Krabbe, de 
Wette, Bleek, Weizsacker, Wittichen. 

5 Talmudic and Rabbinical witnesses, but 
no pre-Christian ones, are in existence for 
the Jewish manner of regarding it (amongst 
the Syrians the dove was held sacred as 
the symbol of the brooding power of na- 
ture ; see Creuzer, Symbol. Il. p. 80). See 
Chagig. ii., according to which the Spirit of 
God, like a dove, brooded over the waters 
(comp. Bereshith rabba, f. iv. 4; Sohar, f. 


NOTE. 89 


Christ the Jews already regarded the dove as a symbol of the Divine Spirit, is 
so far a matter of perfect indifference, as the Baptist could have no doubt, after 
the divine address vouchsafed to him, that the seeing the form of a dove descend- 
ing from heaven was a symbolical manifestation of the Holy Spirit; yet it is 
probable, from the very circumstance that the dxracia took place precisely in 
the form of a dove, that this form of representation had its point of connection 
in an already existing emblematic mode of regarding the Spirit, and that con- 
sequently the Rabbinical traditions relating thereto reach back in their origin 
to the pre-Christian age, without, however (in answer to Liicke on John), hav- 
ing to drag in the very remote figure of the dove descending down in order to 
brood, according to Gen. i. 2. Here it remains undetermined in what proper- 
ties of the dove (innocence, mildness, and the like)! the point of comparison 
was originally based. Moreover, according to John i. 32 ff., the purpose of 
what took place in vision does not appear to have been the communication of 
the Holy Spirit to Jesus (misinterpreted by the Gnostics as the reception of the 
Zéyoc), but the making known of Jesus as the Messiah to the Baptist on the 
part of God, through a onweiov of the Holy Spirit. In this the difficulty disap- 
pears which is derived from the divine nature of Jesus, according to which He 
could not need the bestowal of the Spirit, whether we understand the Spirit in 
itself, or as the communicator of a nova virtus (Calvin), or as tveiya rpodntiKdv 
(Thomasius), or as the Spirit of the divine éfovoia for the work of the Messiah 
(Hofmann), as the spirit of office (Kahnis), which definite views are not to be 
separated from the already existing possession of the Spirit. The later doubts 
of the Baptist, Matt. xi. 2 ff. (in answer to Hilgenfeld, Weizsicker, Keim), as a 
momentary darkening of his higher consciousness in human weakness amid all 
his prophetic greatness, are to be regarded neither as a psychological riddle 
nor as evidence against his recognition of Jesus as the Messiah, which was 
brought about in a miraculous manner ; and this is the more conceivable when 
we take into consideration the political element in the idea of the Messiah en- 
tertained by the imprisoned John (comp. John i. 29, Remark). If, however, 
after the baptism of Jesus, His Messianic appearance did not take place in the 
way in which the Baptist had conceived it, yet the continuous working of the 
latter, which was not given up after the baptism, can carry with it no well- 
founded objection to the revelation of Jesus as the Messiah, which is related in 
the passage before us, Comp, on John iii. 23, 


Notre py AMERICAN EpDITor. 


Tr 


The points of Dr. Meyer’s exposition of the narrative of the Baptism of 
Christ, contained in this chapter, may be thus stated. (1) The fact of the bap- 


xix. 3, on Gen. i. 2, according to which the Comp. besides, Lutterbeck, newtest. Lehr- 
Spirit brooding on the water is the Spirit of begr. I. p. 259 f.; Keim, Gesch. J. I. p. 589 
the Messiah). Targum on Cant. ii. 12: ‘‘ Vox The dove was also regarded as a sacred 
turturis, vox Spiritus s.” Ir. Gibborim, ad bird in many forms of worship amongst 
Gen. i. 2; Bemidb. rab. f. 250.1. See also the Greeks. 

Sohar, Num. f. 68, 271 f., where the dove of 1 Theodore of Mopsuestia : ¢tAdaropyov k. 
Noah is placed in typical connection with didavipwrov CHov. 

the Messiah; in Schoettgen, II. p. 537 f. 


90 THE GOSPEL OF MATTHEW. 


tism isadmitted. (2) He finds the real facts of the event in John i. 32, and 
distinguishes the additional or differing statements in Matthew as legendary 
embellishments. (3) John the Baptist saw the descent of the Spirit, as a spir- 
itual act in the form of a vision, and founded his testimony to Jesus as the 
Messiah, thereon. (4) The vision of John was transformed by tradition into an 
external act, and his testimony into a voice from heaven. (5) The words ‘ This 
is my beloved Son” are formed out of Psalm ii. 7 (‘‘ Thou art my Son,”’ etc.). 
It will be seen that Dr. Meyer relies, here as elsewhere, on his theory of the 
origin of Matthew—to wit, that this apostle wrote only a collection of the say- 
ings of Christ, and that the narrative of events was added by another hand, 
possibly by other hands. We have already characterized this theory, as having no 
sure foundation in the testimony of antiquity (see Preface, page v., et seg.). Nothing 
remains, then, but to relegate the distribution of the matter in Matthew into his- 
torical and legendary, to the category of purely subjective criticism. But this 
species of criticism, in the nature of the case, yields very uncertain results, Thus 
Schenkel, who follows the same method, comes to conclusions directly the op- 
posite of Dr. Meyer’s. Thus he tells us: ‘‘ The account of the fourth gospel can 
prefer no claim to historical credibility in the usual sense of the word. . . . There 
is not the slightest probability that the Baptist ever distinctly recognized the 
Messianic destiny of Jesus, to say nothing of his bearing testimony before the 
whole people to the divine Sonship of Jesus. Just as little ground is there for 
the assumption that it had been revealed to him in a vision, and at the baptism 
of Jesus, that Jesus was the Messiah. . . . Not in the fourth gospel, but in the 
first three, especially in the second, is the relation between John and Jesus 
most correctly represented.”! Thus, what one of these scholars on the 
grounds of subjective criticism affirms, the other denies. With one, John only 
has the true account of Christ’s baptism ; for the other, the Synoptists alone 
are the exact reporters. Whether the ground of such subjective criticism be the 
congruity or otherwise of the narrative with the critic’s personal judgment of 
reasonableness, or the congruity or the reverse of the narrative with what is 
assumed to be the Christian consciousness, the results are alike discordant. 
Renan does no more than caricature this method when he refers the state- 
ments of all the gospels to a standard of wsthetic congruity. He tells us 
boldly : ‘In such an effort to revivify the lofty souls of the past, we must be 
permitted to some extent to divine and conjecture. A great life is an organic 
whole, which cannot be represented by the simple agglomeration of little facts. 
The method of art in such a subject is a good guide. . . . Suppose that in re- 
storing the Minerva of Phidias according to the texts, an unnatural, maimed, 
artificial whole should be produced ; what must we conclude therefrom? But 
one thing: that the texts demand artistic interpretation, that they must be 
gently entreated, until they finally combine to produce a whole in which all 
the materials are happily fused.”* Very properly we reject with scorn such a 
treatment of the Gospels as this. But is it anything more than a logical result 
of subjective criticism applied to the evangelists, when the criticism is without 
the support of historical or documentary authority ? The Christian conscious- 
ness of the Church universal in past ages has not found it impossible to 
receive, in its obvious sense, the narrative of a divine testimony to Jesus, at the 


1 ** Character of Jesus,’? American ed., vol. i. pp. 71, 72. 
2“ Tife of Jesus,’’ Amer. ed., pp. 47, 48. 


NOTE. 91 


time of His baptism ; nor is the symbolism here more difficult to accept than 
the symbolism of the day of Pentecost. 

There is an ambiguity in the word vision, the noticing of which may protect 
us from confusion of thought. It may mean subjectively something seen by a 
person in an exalted state of mind, but which has reality for that person only ; 
or it may mean objectively something externally exhibited by supernatural 
power as a divine symbol, and which may be perceived by one or more persons. 
Dr. Meyer, as we understand him, holds that the vision of the opening heavens 
and the descending Spirit was an experience of John the Baptist in the first 
sense ; but we quite agree with Lange in saying, ‘‘The fact that this was a 
vision does not exclude the objective reality of this miraculous event ; on the 
contrary, it is in perfect accordance with it.”! And Lange also says well: 
««The objections raised by modern criticism against the historical character of 
this narrative fall to the ground the moment we acknowledge the supernatural 
element in the life of our Saviour.” As to the assertion that the tradition 
quoted by Justin Martyr, to wit : ‘‘ when he had stepped into the water, a fire 
was kindled in the Jordan,”? is presumption of the legendary character of Mat- 
thew’s narrative, we fail to see its force. The acute and lively but not closely log- 
ical Justin might pick up this story from some one of the apocryphal gospels cur- 
rent in histime. Still, the growth of apocryphal legends in the second century 
cannot prove that Matthew is here legendary—no more than the story that 
the Wandering Jew saw Christ on the way to Calvary is proof that the account 
of the Crucifixion is a legend. 

On the purpose of the vision Dr. Meyer is more satisfactory. It was ‘‘ not the 
communication of the Holy Spirit to Jesus, but the making known of Jesus as the 
Messiah to the Baptist, on the part of God through a onweiov of the Holy Spirit’ 
(p. 89). We can add that it was a testimony from heaven to the divine Son- 
ship of Jesus, not only for the Baptist, but for othersalso. The view that Jesus 
here first received the qualifications for his office is contradicted by the whole 
tenor of His life. It is contradicted also, as Neander reminds us, by His own 
testimonies of Himself. ‘‘In all these there is manifested the consciousness 
of His own greatness, not as something acquired, but as unoriginated, and 
inseparable from His being. He does not speak like one who has become what 
He is by some sudden revolution.”’ * 


1“ Com. on Matt.,’’ Amer. ed., p. 78. 
2 “* Dialogue with Trypho,”’ chap. 88. 
8 “Life of Christ,’? Amer, ed., p. 62. 


92 THE GOSPEL OF MATTHEW. 


CHAPTER. IV. 


Ver. 4. 6 dv§pwr.] Elz., Scholz omit the 6. It might easily have been added 
from the LXX. in Deut. viii. 3, where, however, it is wanting in several wit- 
nesses ; but as the article is superfluous, and the witnesses in its favor greatly 
preponderate, there are decisive reasons for retaining it. —é7i mavti| év ravri 
is found in C D, 13, 21, 59, 124, 300 ; approved by Griesb., adopted by Fritzsche, 
Lachm., Tisch. Rightly ; éxi was just as easily suggested by the first clause 
of the sentence by itself as by the reading of the LXX., which is attested by 
preponderating witnesses. — Ver. 5. ioryow] BC DZ, 1, 33: éornoev. Rec- 
ommended by Griesb., adopted by Lachm. and Tisch. 8. The aorist interrupts 
and disturbs the representation as present, and has been introduced from Luke 
iv. 9.—Ver. 6. Aéyec] Lachm., but upon very slight authority, reads sizev, 
which is not to be adopted, even in ver. 9, instead of Aéyer, with Lachm. and 
Tisch. 8, after BC D Z 8 and Curss. It is taken from Luke. — Ver. 10. ézicw 
uov] is wanting in Elz., deleted also by Fritzsche and Tisch. 8, bracketed by 
Lachm. The witnesses are greatly divided, and the preponderance is uncertain 
(against it: BC* K PS V A 8, Curss., Or. Ir. and other Fathers, and several 
Verss., among which Syr. Vulg. ; in favor: C** DEL MU TZ, and several 
Curss., Justin., and many Fathers and Verss., amongst which is It.). An old 
insertion from xvi. 13, where the cireumstance that Peter is there the person 
addressed, might cause the less difficulty that he also is called Satan. In Luke 
iv. 8, draye éxicw pov car. is also an interpolation. — Ver. 12. 6 ’Insotc] is 
wanting in B C* D Z 8, 16, 33, 61, Copt. Aeth. Or. Eus. Aug. The omission is 
approved by Griesbach. Rightly ; the addition of the subject suggested itself 
the more easily that a new section begins in ver. 12. Comp. ver. 18. Deleted 
also by Tisch. — Ver. 18. dé] Elz. adds 6 ’Inoovc, against decisive testimony. 
Comp. on ver. 12. — Ver. 23. 6Anv 7. Tadu2..] Lachm. : 64y 7. Tadcdaia, without 
evidence, as not merely C but B also has év 6An 7. Tad., which Tisch. has adopt- 
ed, 8th ed. &* has merely év 77 Tad. The reading of Tisch. 8 is to be adopted 5 
the Received reading is a change made to harmonize with the more common 
construction. 


Vv. 1-11. Temptation of Jesus. Mark i. 12 f.; Luke iv. 1 ff.’—The 
narrative in Matthew (and Luke) isa later development of the tradition, 
the older and still undeveloped form of which is to be found in Mark. — 


1 Alex. Schweizer, exeg. hist. Darstellung 
ad. Versuchsgesch. in s. Kritik ad. Gengensdtze 
zw. Rationalism. u. Supernat. 1833; P. 
Ewald, @. Versuch. Christi mit Bezugnahme 
auf ad. Versuch. a. Protoplasten. 1888; Kohl- 
schiitter in the Sdchs. Stud. 1843; Ullmann, 
Stindlosigk. Jesu, ed. 7, 1863; Graul in 
Guericke’s Zeitschr. 1844, 3; Pfeiffer in the 
Deutsch, Zeitschr, 1851, No, 36 ; Koenemann 


(purely dogmatic) in Guericke’s Zeitschr. 
1850, p. 586 ff.; Laufs in the Stud. wu. Krit. 
1853, p. 355 ff.; Nebe, d. Versuch. d. Hernn 
e. dussere Thatsache, 1857 ; v. Engelhardt, de 
Jesu. Chr. tentatione, 1858; Held in Hilgen- 
feld’s Zeitschr. 1866, p. 384 ff. ; Haupt in the 
Stud. u. Krit. 1871, p. 209 ff. ; Pfleiderer in 
Hilgenfeld’s Zeitschr, 1870, p. 188 ff. 


CHAP. IV., 2. 93 


zére] when the Holy Spirit had descended upon Him. — avjy67] ce was led 
upwards, i.e. from the lower ground of the river bank to the higher lying 
wilderness. Luke ii. 22, xxii. 66.—rv éEpyuov] the same wilderness of 
Judea spoken of in ch, iii. According to the tradition, we are to think of 
the very rugged wilderness of Quarantania (wilderness of Jericho, Josh. 
xvi. 1).!. But in that case a more precise, distinctive designation must have 
been given ; and Mark i. 13, qv wera tov Oypiwv, is a point which has a suffi- 
cient basis in the idea of the wilderness in general. Nothing in the text 
points to the wilderness of Sinai (Chemnitz, Clericus, Michaelis, Nebe). — 
bxd tov rveiuatoc] by the Holy Spirit, which he had received at His baptism. 
avfy0n does not indicate (Acts viii. 39 ; 2 Kings ii. 16) that He was trans- 
ported in a miraculous, involuntary manner, but by the power of the Spirit, 
which is expressed still more strongly in Mark i. 12. Others (Bertholdt, 
Paulus, Glickler) understand Jesus’ own spirit, Paulus regarding it as an 
ecstatic condition. This would be opposed to the context (ili. 16), and to 
the view of the matter taken by the Synoptics, which, in Luke iv. 1, is ex- 
pressed without any doubt whatever by the words rveiuaroc ayiov mAgpne.” 
— reipachjva:| designates the purpose for which the Spirit impelled Jesus 
to go into the wilderness : reipdfew, to put tothe proof, receives its more 
precise definition in each case from the connection. Here : whether the 
Messiah is to be brought to take an unrighteous step which conflicts with His 
calling and the will of God. — iri rod dia8ddvv] In what shape the devil ap- 
peared to Him, the text does not say ; and the view of the evangelist as to 
that is left undetermined. Yet the appearance must be conceived of as 
being directly devilish, not at all as taking place in the form of an angel of 
light (Ambrose, Menken), or even of a man. [See note IV., p. 108.] 


RemarK.—The two opposed principles, 470 tov rv. and t70 Tod diaB., are es- 
sentially related to one another ; and the whole position of the history, more- 
over, immediately after the descent of the Spirit on Jesus, proves that it is the 
victory of Jesus, filled with the Spirit (Luke iv. 1, 2), over the devil, which is to 
be set forth. It appears from this how erroneous is the invention of Olshausen, 
that the condition of Jesus in the wilderness was that of one who had been 
abandoned by the fulness of the Spirit. The opinion of Calvin is similar, al- 
though more cautiously expressed, ver. 11: ‘‘Interdum Dei gratia, quamvis 
praesens esset, eum secundum carnis sensum latuit.”’ 


Ver. 2. Nyaretcac] to be taken absolutely. Luke iv. 2. Comp. Deut. ix, 
9; Ex. xxxiv. 28; 1 Kings xix. 8. It is explained, without reason, by 
Kuinoel, Kuhn, and many others in the sense of deprivation of the usual 
means of nourishment. This relative meaning, which, if presented by the 
context, would be admissible,* is here, however, where even the nights are 


1 Robinson, Pal. Il. p. 552; Schubert, 7od ScaBddov, “After his baptism he gives 
Reise, III. p. 73; Raumer, p. 47. Himself up to the Holy Spirit, and by him 
2 Euth. Zigabenus wellremarks : éxéiSwouv is led to whatever that one may order, and 
€auTov eTa TO BdrTigHa TO ayy mvevpate Kai is led up into the wilderness, for the war to 
um avTod ayeTat mpds 0 av exetvo KeAeVy, Kal be made upon him by the devil.” 
aVayETAL cis THY Epnuoy ext TH TOAEUNIAVaL U7 3 Kuhn, Z. J. I. p. 364 ff. 


94 THE GOSPEL OF MATTHEW. 


mentioned as well as the days, contradicted by the context, the supernat- 
ural character of the history, the intentionally definite statement of Luke 
(iv. 2), and the types of Moses and Elijah. It is just as irrelevant to change 
the forty days as a sacred number into an indefinite measure of time (Koster) ; 
or, as around number, into several days (Neander, Krabbe). That, more- 
over, the forty days’ fast became the occasion of the temptation, cannot ap- 
pear as out of keeping (Strauss, de Wette) with the object, but, according to 
ver. 1, was contained in the design of the Spirit. —ticrepov] of itself super- 
fluous, indicates, however, the circumstance that the hunger did vot attack 
Him wntil He had fasted.’ 

Ver. 3. ‘0 respatwr] Part. present taken substantively. See on ii. 20. 
Here : the devil. Comp. 1 Thess. iii. 5. — ei] does not indicate that Satan 
had doubts of Jesus being the Son of God (Origen, Wolf, Bengel), or was 
not aware of it (Ignat. Phil. interpol. 9), comp. xxviii. 40 ; but the prob- 
lematical expression was to incite Jesus to enter upon the unreasonable 
demand, and to prove Himself the Son of God.*? —vid¢ row beov] See iii. 17. 
The devil makes use of this designation of the Messiah, not because he 
deemed Jesus to be only a man, who viober#On TO Oe6 dia Tag apeTag abTov, 
“‘was adopted as a Son by God on account of His virtues” (Euth. Ziga- 
benus), or because he had become doubtful, owing to the hungering of 
Jesus, of His divinity, which had been attested at His baptism (Chrys- 
ostom) ; but because Jesus’ supernatural relation to God is well known to 
him, whilst he himself, as the principle opposed to God, has to combat the 
manifestation and activity of the divine. Observe that by the position of 
the words the emphasis lies on vidc : if Thou standest to God in the relation 
of Son. —eixé, wa] iva after verbs of commanding, entreaty, and desire, 
and the like, does not stand in the sense of the infinitive, as is commonly 
assumed (Winer, de Wette, Bleek), in opposition to the necessary concep- 
tion of the words, but is, as it always is, an expression of the purpose, in 
order that, the mistaking of which proceeds from this, that it is not usual in 
the German language to express the object of the command, and so on, in 
the form of a purpose. Here : speak (utter a command) in order that these 
stones, and so on. Comp. xx. 21.*—dproc] Bread, in the proper sense ; not, 
like D1)7, food in general. Comp. vii. 9. — The Son of God must free Him- 
self from the state of hunger, which is unbecoming His dignity, by an act 
similar to the divine creation, and thus employ His divine power for His own 
advantage, The tempter introduces his lever into the immediate situation of, 
the moment. 

Ver. 4. Deut. viii. 3, after the LXX., contains the words of Moses 


1 Bengel: ‘‘Hactenus non tam fuerat ten- elvat vids deod, ‘‘He thought, that he would 
tatio, quam ad eam praeparatio,”’ ‘‘ Thus be irritated by the word, as if being re- 
far it had not been so much a temptation proached for not being the Son of God.”’ 
as a preparation for it.”” Comp. the sim- 3 The oldest examples from Greek writers 
ilar usage of elra and éme.cra after participles after édéAev, 6hpa, in Hom. J/. i. 1383 (see 
by classical writers, Stallbaum, ad Plat. Nagelsbach thereon), occur in Herodotus 
Phaed. p. 70 E. and Demosthenes. See Schaefer, ad Dem. 

2 Euth. Zigabenus: wero, ott mapaxviody- 279.8: akévodv, tva Bondyon ; Kiihner, II. 2, 
cEeTaL TS Adyw, Kaddamep Overdiovels emt TO wy op. 519. — of Acdou odror] Comp. iii. 9. 


CHAR. LV:360. 95 


addressed to the Israelites, which have reference to the divinely-supplied 
Note how Jesus repels each one of the three temptations, simply 
with the sword of the Spirit (Eph. vi. 17). — iz ap7w] the preservation of 
life does not depend upon bread alone.’ This construction is a common one 
in classical writers with éx, awd, or the simple dative. — ¢yjoera:] The future 
tense designates in Deut. i. 1, and in LXX. as well as here, simply the 
Suture, that which will happen, the case which will occur under given circum- 
stances. So also in classical writers in general sentences.* — 6 dvOpwroc] 
universal: Man. So in the original text and in the LXX.; there is the less 
reason to depart from this, and to explain it : de insigni illo homine, that is, 
Messiah (Fritzsche), as the application of the universal statement to Himself 
on the part of Jesus was a matter of course. — pjatc] Word, in its proper 
sense. By every statement which proceeds from the mouth of God, that is, 
through every command which is uttered by God, by which the preservation of 
life is effected in an extraordinary, supernatural manner (without dproc).° 
Comp. Wisd. xvi. 26. pia is not res (134), not even in xviii. 16, Luke ii. 
15, Acts v. 82, 1 Macc. v. 37, since éxrop. dud ordu. Oeov necessarily points to 
the meaning of word, declaration, which, however, is not to be explained, 
with Fritzsche (comp. Usteri and Ullmann) : omni mandato divino peragendo. 

Ver. 5. HapataufZ.| he takes Him with him, 1 Mace. iii. 87, iv. 1, and fre- 
quently in Greek writers. — riv dyiav 76,0] wpa ney, Wea: saivaii.2;, line dhs 
Neh. xi. 1. Jerusalem, the city of God, on account of the national temple.‘ 
Even at the present day it is called by the Arabs : the place of the Sanctuary, 
or the Holy City [El Kuds].° The designation has something solemn in 
contrast to the devil. — icryow] not ‘* auctor erat, ut Christus (with him) illue 
se conferret,” ‘« he was the contriver, that Christ should bring Himself thither 
(with him),” (Kuinoel, Fritzsche), but: he places Him, which implies the 
involuntary nature of the act on the part of Jesus, and the power on the 
part of the devil. Comp. Euseb. H. #. ii. 23: éoryoav . . . tov ’IdkwBov éxt 
TO xTEpbytov Tov vaov, ‘They placed James upon the wing of the temple.” 
A more precise determination of what is certainly a miraculous occurrence 
(conceived of by Jerome as a carrying away through the air) is not given in the 
text, which, however, does not permit us to think of it as something inter- 
nal taking place in the condition of a trance (Olshausen). Comp. Acts viii. 


manna, 


1 Examples of ¢nv emt in Kypke, Obss. I. p. 
14 f.; Markland, ad Max. Tyr. Diss. xxvii. 
6; Bergler, Ad alciphr. p. 294. 

2 Dissen, ad Dem. de cor. p. 369. 

3 Amongst the Israelites it was effected 
by means of the manna; therefore we 
must not say with Euth. Zigabenus: may 
pjwa exropevopevov Sa otopatos seov emt Tov 
TevovTa Sikynv tpodyHs cuvexee Thy Cwhv 
avtov, ‘‘Every word proceeding out of 
the mouth of God to the man hungering 
after nourishment, keeps together his life.” 
Comp. Chrysostom: Svvatat 6 teds kai pyuate 
Spepar Tov mevv@vta, “God is able even by 
a word to nourish the hungry one.” 
Pfleiderér also refers it to the power of 


spiritual nourishment contained in the di- 
vine word; as also Calovius, who says: 
“Revocat a verbo potentiae, quo lapides 
erant in panem conyertendi, ad verbum 
gratiae, cui adhaerentes vivent, etiamsi 
pane careant,’’ ‘‘He recalls from a word 
of power, by which stones were to be con- 
verted into bread, to a word of grace, to 
which men adhering shall liye, even 
though they lack bread.”’ 

4V. 35, xxvii. 58; Luke iv. 9; Sir. xxxvi. 
13, xlix. 6; Josephus, Ant. iv. 4. 4; Light- 
foot, Hor. p. 43; Ottii Spicileg. p. 9. 

5 Hamelsveld, dibl. Geogr. I. p. 204 ff.; 
Rosenmiiller, Morgend. in loc. 


96 THE GOSPEL OF MATTHEW. 


38. — rd xrephylov Tod lepov] the little wing of the temple’ is sought for by many 
on the temple building itself, so that it is either its battlement (Luther, Beza, 
Grotius), that is, the parapet surrounding the roof, or the ridge (Fritzsche, 
Winer), or the gable, pediment (Vulgate : pinnaculum ; Paulus, Bleek), the 
two latter from their wing shape ( A ), or rogf generally (Keim, and older 
expositors.? But, apart from this, that the roofing of the temple house, 
according to Josephus, Antt. v. 5. 6, vi. 5. 1, was furnished on the top with 
pointed stakes as a protection against birds, and, moreover; on account of 
the extreme sacredness of the place, would hardly be selected by tradition 
as the spot where the devil stationed himself, the rov igpov is opposed to it, 
which does not, like vadc, designate the main building of the temple, prop- 
erly speaking, but the whole area of the temple with its buildings.* The 
view, therefore, of those is to be preferred who, with Euth. Zigabenus, 
Olearius, Reland, Valckenaer, seek the rrepiyiov in an outbuilding of the 
temple area ; where, however, it is again doubtful whether Solomon's portico 
or the oroa BaciArxh, the former (Josephus, Antt. xx. 9. 7) on the east side, 
the latter (Josephus, Antt. xv. 11. 5) on the south, both standing on an 
abrupt precipice, is intended. Wetstein and Michaelis prefer the former ; 
Kuinoel, Bretschneider, B. Crusius, Arnoldi, the latter. In favor of the 
latter is the description of the giddy look down from this portico given in 
Josephus.* In Hegesippus, quoted by Eus. ii. 23 (where James preaches 
downwards from the zrepiyov tov vaov, and the scribes then go up and 
throw him down), it is not.the gable, but the pinnacle, the balustrade of the 
temple building, which formed a projection (axpwrfpiov), that we are to 
think of.° The article denotes that the locality where the occurrence took 
place was well known. 


Remarx.—The second temptation in Matthew is the third in Luke. The 
transposition was made with a view to the order in which the localities suc- 
ceeded each other. But in a climactic point of view, how inappropriate is the 
order in which it occurs in Luke, and how appropriate is that in Matthew, ® whose 
greater originality must here also be maintained against Schneckenburger and 
Krafft. The variation itself, however, is not removed by the circumstance 
that Matthew only continues the narrative with tére and mdAcv (Ebrard), but it 
remains and is unessential. 


Ver. 6. In Ps. xci. 11, 12, according to the LXX., it is God's providential 


1 Amongst the Greeks (Strabo, Plutarch, 
the Scholiasts), mrepév, wing, is specially 
used in an architectural sense. See the Lea- 
ica, also Miiller, Archdol. § 220.3. On mrépvé 
in this sense, comp. Poll. vii. 121; on 
mrepvycov, Joseph. Antt. xv. 11. 5; on 
mrépwua, Vitruy. iii. 3. 9. 

2 See especially Krebs on the passage 
that is indicated. 

3 See Tittmann, Synon. p. 178 f. 

4 ci Tis am aKpov TOV TaVTYS TEeyoUS aupw oUV- 
Tiseis Ta Paty Sromtever, 
E£iKVvOUMEN NS THS OWEws cis aueTPYTOV TOV Budor, 


oKoTOSuviav, ovK 


“Tf any one looked down from the top of 
the battlements, or down both those alti- 
tudes, he would become giddy, while his 
sight could not reach to the immeasurable 
depth. ”’ 

5 Comp. Hesychius: mrepvyrov axpwrypiov. 

6 Luther: At the first temptation, the 
devil appeared as a black one; at the 
second, where he puts forth a word of 
Scripture, a light, white one; at the third, 
“quite as a divinely majestic devil, who 
comes out straightway, indeed, as if he 
were God Himself.” 


CHAP, IV., 7, 8. 97 


care for the pious in general that isspoken of. Here the tempter, who now 
himself grasps the weapon of Scripture, which had just been used against 
him, cunningly applies the typical expressions in the Psalms (the figure is 
borrowed from maternal anxiety) strictly to the Messiah. —67], not the 
recitative, but a part of the passage. —The Son of God, in reliance on the divine 
protection, must undertake a daring miracle of display in order to win over 
the masses for Himself. For the multitudes, with a view to influencing 
whom this miracle is proposed, are understood to be, as a matter of course, 
on the temple area ; and therefore we are not to assume, with Kohlschiitter, 
Ullmann, Engelhardt, that it was only an exhibition of divine favor and 
protection, and no public spectacle, which was aimed at. On that view no 
sufficient reason is shown why Jesus is brought from the wilderness to the 
most populous centre of the metropolis.’ 

Ver. 7. Hat] rursus, never signifies in the N. T., not even in 2 Cor. x. 7, 
Gal. v. 8, 1 John ii. 8, at guoque, e diverso, a meaning which it frequently has 
in classic writers (Ellendt, Lex. Soph. Il. p. 485), as Erasmus, Er. Schmid, 
Schleusner, B. Crusius, have interpreted it ; but here means, on the other 
hand, looking back to the yéypaxra of the devil in ver. 6, and introducing 
another passage of Scripture as something which again has been written ; 
comp. Vv. 33.* — ov« éxmecpacecc] future, as in i. 21 ; the compound strengthens 
the meaning ; comp. on 1 Cor. x. 9.—The meaning is : ‘* Do not let it be a 
question whether God will save thee from dangers on which thou hast entered 
uncalled.” * 

Ver. 8 f. IIldoac. . . xéouov] PIS nin?n-49, Ezra i. 2. Not a hyper- 
bolical expression: amplissimum terrarum tractum, but actually all the king- 
doms of the world, Luke iv. 5. The devil could indeed regard only all heathen 
lands as his disposable possession ; * but even unto those remote heathen lands, 
and beyond, and far beyond the small country of Palestine, has the marvel- 
lous height of the mountain enabled the eye to look; the Holy Land, with the 
temple and the peculiar people of God, certainly belonged besides to the 
Son of God as a matter of course ; therefore to explain it away as omnes 
Palaestinae regiones (Krebs, Loesner, Fischer, Gratz) is quite away from the 
point. —édv mec. . . . or} If thou wilt have cast Thyself down before me 
as Thy master, and thereby have manifested Thy homage (ii. 2) to me. By 
the fulfilment of this demand the devil would have made Jesus unfaithful 
to Himself, and would have secured his own world-rule over Him. Where 
the mountain in question is to be sought for (according to Michaelis, it was 
Nebo, according to others, the Mownt of Olives, Tabor, Moriah, Horeb) is, con- 
sidering the miraculous nature of the scene (Luke iv. 5: év ory ypédvov), 
not even to be asked ; just as little is de/kvvow to be rationalized as if it 
denoted not merely the actual pointing, but also the verbis demonstrare, 


~ od “ie 


1 Huth. Zigabenus strikingly remarks : 6a 
cevobogias cdciv avtov emxetper, “* He attempts 
to catch him through vainglory.” 

2 Bengel well says: Scriptura per scrip- 
turam interpretanda et  concilianda, 
“Scripture is to be interpreted and har- 
monized through Scripture.” 


3 Flacius: Si habuisset expressum man- 
datum dei, non fuisset tentatio, “If he had 
had an express command of God, it had not 
been a temptation.’’ Deut. vi. 16 (LXX.), 
comp. Ex. xvii. 2. 

4 Luke iv. 6; Lightfoot, p. 1088; 
menger, entd. Judenth. II. p. 820 ff. 


Eisen- 


98 THE GOSPEL OF MATTHEW. 


(Kuinoel, Gléckler); the dda aivtév, moreover, is the external splendor of 
the kingdoms that lay before His eye. 

Ver. 10. "Yraye] The spurious words oziow wov would have to be explained : 
go behind me—that is, go back that I may see thee no longer ! agavicAyr:, 
Euth. Zigabenus. ozicw with the genitive belongs to the LXX. and the Apoc- 
rypha, after the Hebrew, ‘5 *)8 ; in this way the Greeks construe dzo6ev. 
— arava] to infer from this that Jesus now for the first time (too late) recog- 
nizes Satan (de Wette), is arbitrary, and opposed to the representation of 
the matter in ver. 1, according to which Jesus cannot have been unaware 
of the intention of the Holy Spirit, who impelled Him to go into the wil- 
derness. That He now calls Satan by name, is in keeping with the growing 
intensity of the emotion in general, as well as with the personal address of 
the tempter in ver. 9.'—xipiov, x.7.2.] Jehovah alone shalt thou worship, do 
homage to Him only as thy master. Deut. vi. 13, according to the LXX., 
freely applied to the proposal of Satan. According to this arrangement, 
it is by the way of obedience to God that Jesus is aware that He will attain 
to the government of the world. John xviii. 36; Phil. il. 6 ff.; Matt. 
Xxvill. 18 ; Acts x. 36 ff. 

Ver. 11. "Ayyetor] Angels, without the article. — dijxévovy] ministered to 
Him. The remark of Bengel is correct : ‘‘sine dubio pro eo, ac tum opus 
erat, sc. allato cibo,” ‘‘ without doubt, even as then there was need, sc. food 
being brought.” ? Concerning the use of dcaxoveiy in this sense ;* and how 
pragmatically does this appearance of angels, after a series of temptations 
that have been victoriously withstood, correspond to the appearance of 
Satan in ver. 3! Comp. 1 Kings xix. 5. Others, not referring it to food, 
say that extraordinary divine support (John i. 52) is intended,* on which view 
the angels themselves are partly left out, partly effaced from the narrative ; 
whilst Chrysostom (who compares the carrying of Lazarus by angels into 
Abraham’s bosom), Theophylact, Euth. Zigabenus, Grotius, do not enter 
into any more minute exposition of the d:axoveiv. But considering the ap- 
propriateness of the above definite explanation, it is not right to be satisfied 
with one that is indefinite and wavering. 


Remark.—According to the representation of the evangelists, the temptation 
of Jesus by the devil appears in the connection of the history as a real external 
marvellous occurrence. See Ch. F. Fritzsche in Fritzschior. Opuse. p. 122 ff. To 
abide by this view (Michaelis, Storr, Ebrard, P. Ewald, Graul, K6nemann, 
Arnoldi, Schegg, Delitzsch, Nebe, Engelhardt, Hofmann, Riggenbach, Baum- 
garten) is a necessary consequence of the denial of any legendary elements in 
the canonical Gospels, and is equally justifiable with this denial in general. 
The evangelists were aware that they were relating a real external history in time 
andspace (in answer to Kuhn, Lichtenstein), and the choice only remains between 


1“Tentatorem, quum is maxime fuvere de Wette, Ewald, Bleek, Nebe, Keim. 


videri vult, Satanam appellat,”’ ‘*‘ He calls the 3 See Wetstein, and Matthiae, ad Soph. 
tempter Satan, when that one wishes to Phil. 284. 
seem especially friendly,’ Bengel. 4 Calvin, Maldonatus, Kuinoel, Olshausen, 


2 So Luther, Piscator, Jansen, Wolf, Ham- Kuhn, Ammon, Ebrard. 
mond, Michaelis, Paulus, Fritzsche,Strauss, 


CHAPS ITV, I. i) 


adopting either this view or assuming that of an ideal history in the garb of legend, 
gradually brought into shape by the power of the idea. All attempts at explaining 
away the devil and his external appearance are arbitrary contradictions or crit- 
ical carpings, opposed to the design and representations of the evangelists, 
more or less of a rationalistic character. This holds good, not merely of the 
absurd, and, in relation to the third act, even monstrous view of those who, 
instead of the devil, introduce one or even various individuals, perhaps a mem- 
ber of the Sanhedrim or high priest, who wished to examine Jesus and to win 
Him over, or destroy Him (Herm. y. d. Hardt, Exegesis loc. difficilior. quat. ev. 
p. 470 ff. ; Basedow, Venturini, Méller, newe Ansichten, p. 20 ff. ; Rosenmiiller, 
Kuinoel, Feilmoser in the Twib. Quartalschr. 1828, 1, 2), but also of the view 
which regards the event as a vision, whether this was brought about by the 
devil (Origen? Pseudo-Cyprian, Theodore of Mopsuestia), or by God (Farmer, 
Inquiry into the Nature and Design of Christ’s Temptation, London, 1761 ; comp. 
also Calvin on ver. 5), or by natural means (Balth. Becker, Scultetus, Clericus, 
Wetstein, Bolten, Bertholdt, Jahn, Gabler, Paulus, Gratz, Pfleiderer), or of those 
who view it as a significant morning dream (Meyer in the Stud. u. Kritik. 1831, 
p. 319 ff.),—which interpretations, moreover, are in contradiction with the 
clear repose and moral definiteness of the divine-human consciousness of Jesus, 
in virtue of which there never occurs in His life any condition of ecstasy, or a 
trace of any special manifestations in dreams. Akin to this, but equally offensive 
to the gospel history, and besides by no means leaving unaffected the moral 
character of the development of Jesus Himself, if we look to Heb. ii. 18, iv. 15, 
is the view which transforms the occurrence into an internal history, which 
took place in the thoughts and fancy of Jesus (Déderlein, Eichhorn, allg. Bibl. 
III. p. 283 ff. ; Thaddaeusd. i. Dereser, d. Versuch. Christi, Bonn, 1794 ; Hezel, 
Augusti, Bretschneider, Weisse, Aritik d. ev. Gesch. II. p. 12 ; Hocheisen in the 
Tih. Zeitschr. 1833, 2 ; Kohlschiitter, Pfeiffer, Rink, Ammon, Laufs, Schenkel, 
Held). On this view the devil has again been recently brought forward, on 
grounds exegetically justifiable, as the operating principle (Krabbe, Hofmann, 
Schniid, bibl. Theol. I. p. 65 ; and very indirectly also by Ullmann) ; while, in a 
more arbitrary manner, it has been attributed to the disciples that they appre- 
hended in an objective form the inner fact related to them by Jesus, that He had 
rejected the false idea of the Messiah ; while Neander, Z. J. p. 120 ff., sub- 
stantially giving up the reality of the history of the temptation (‘‘a fragmentary 
symbolical setting forth of the facts of His inner life,’ where the manner of the 
devil’s co-operation is left undetermined), holds hesitatingly by its truth ; and 
Kuhn, moreover, is divided between the historical and unhistorical view of the 
manner of itseccurrence. To those who transfer the history into the inner life 
of Jesus’ spirit, belong also Hase and Olshausen, the former of whom recognizes 
it in the whole history of His mental growth, probably externalized by Himself, 
with reference to Ex. xvi., Deut. viii. 2, Ps. xci. 11 f., into an individual fact, 

but in the tradition assumed to be actual history, and who volatilizes the devil 
' into the spirit of the world ; while Olshausen, notwithstanding the id rod 
mvenuatoc in ver. 1, finds the reality of the occurrence in this, that the soul of 
Jesus was exposed to the full operations of the kingdom of darkness ; while 
Lange regards the internal temptation of Jesus as caused by the devil, but 
brought about by human means—that is, as an assault of the sympathetic in- 
working of the national and world spirit upon His soul, and as the tentative 
representatives of this spirit, drags in, by an invention that is his own, the 


100 THE GOSPEL OF MATTHEW. 

deputation of the Sanhedrim, which had been despatched to John (John i. 19), 
as they were on their way back to Jerusalem. With more caution and with 
profounder historical insight, Keim (comp. Weizsicker, p. 239 ff.) regards the 
history of the temptation in the light of the victorious beginning of the strug- 
gle with Satan, xii. 25 ff., where the historical kernel is the heavy weight of 
questions and doubts which were imposed on the soul of Jesus whilst He was 
calmly meditating upon the obligation and the manner of His vocation to the 
Messiahship, and on His decision to enter upon it, which had so powerfully 
taken hold of Him on the banks of the Jordan ; on this initial victory Jesus 
could not have left His disciples without some information. But however we 
may apprehend the narrative as an historical occurrence in the mind of Jesus, 
the monstrous nature of the external formation of the history remains the more 
inexplicable the more directly its origin is brought into connection with Jesus 
Himself -and His circle of disciples, especially as the threefold details of the 
temptation were still unknown to Mark. To view the event as a parable, is in 
contradiction to the narrative, arbitrary in itself, and alien to the style of par- 
abolic address employed by Jesus elsewhere. So, after older writers, who, 
however, endanger the sinless character of Jesus, it has been viewed as a sym- 
bolical address of Jesus or of one of His disciples directed against false Messi- 
anic hopes. See Schleiermacher, Schr. d. Lukas, p. 54 f., and L. J. p. 157 ff. ; 
B. Crusius, bibl. Theol. p. 303, and on Matthew, p. 82; Usteri in the Stud. u. Krit. 
1829, p. 455 ff., who at a later time recanted this opinion, and regarded the 
narrative as a myth (1832, p. 768); Richter, formam narrat. Matth. iv. 1-11. 
parabolicam ex Judaeor. opinione de duplici Adamo esse repetend., Viteb. 1824 ; 
Schweizer, Bleek; comp. Theile, z. Biogr. J. p. 49: ‘‘a warning directed by 
some adherent or another in support of the spiritually moral view, in opposi- 
tion to the chief elements of the earthly Messianic hope.” Against the para- 
bolic character, see Hasert in the Stud. u. Krit. 1830, p. 74 f. ; Strauss, Z. J. I. 
p. 444 f. ; Schmid, bibl. Theol. I. p. 60 ; Engelhardt, Nebe. — As now, however, 
the history of the temptation in the first and third evangelists, viewed as an 
actual external occurrence, contains not merely a legendary magical scenery 
which is still foreign to the oldest Gospel, but also absolute impossibilities and 
contradictions with the moral character of Jesus as filled with the Spirit, who 
does not at once get rid of Satan, but allows him to proceed to the utmost ex- 
treme ; as, moreover, this occurrence on the other side stands in contradiction 
with the devil’s cunning and craftiness (Paulus, exegel. Handb. I. p. 376), whose 
assaults as proceeding from the devil against the Son of man would be planned 
with as much clumsiness as pointlessness,—there thus remains nothing else 
than to explain the narrative which in Mark still exhibits its first undeveloped begin- 
nings, the first crystallizations of its ideal contents, the subject of which the narrators 
deemed to be true history, and repeated as such, as a legend, the contents of which, 
regarded as thought, possessed historical truth, and which arose among Jewish Chris- 
tians,! being derived from the idea of the Messiah as opposed to the devil, and 


1 Various conceptions from the legendary 
or mythical point of view, see in Theiss, 
Loffler, 7. Schr. Il. p. 185 ff.; Fritzsche, 
Usteri in the Stud. wu. Krit. 1832, p. 768 ff. ; 
Strauss, I. p. 479 f.; de Wette, Gfrorer, 
Gesch. d. Urchr.1. 1, p. 379 ff. ; Ewald.—The 
locality of the temptation, the 2ilderness, 


was at once suggested as the idea gradually 
assumed bodily form from the sojourn of 
Jesus with the Baptist, and from the popu- 
lar belief that demons had their dwellings 
in the wilderness ; the forty days, however, 
found their venerable point of connection in 
the types of Moses and Elias (hardly of the 


OHAPS Tvs, ll 101 


the necessity and complete realization of which was exhibited in the whole life 
and work of Christ, placed, like a compendious programme, an ‘‘ epilome om- 
nium tentationum’’ (Bengel), at the beginning of the Messianic career, which 
commenced at the baptism. Not as if there had not been on the part of Jesus 
after His baptism, and before His entrance on His work, the most serious prep- 
aration and most intense concentration of thought in still retirement, in which 
the whole opposition of the devil, as wellas the manner of His own struggles 
and conquests which had been peculiarly determined by God, must have pre- 
sented themselves vividly before His eyes ; although this alone could not have 
given rise to the history of the temptation. For that purpose it was necessary that 
His holy life, that actual victory over Satan, should first be completed. That 
narrative might now first have arisen in the living history-moulding power of 
the ideas which prevails generally throughout the preliminary history, first of 
all in the form in which it appears in Mark, but soon after gradually expanded 
into detail, yet again silently excluded by John, considering the impossibility 
of assigning a place to it in connection with his history, Its expanded form, 
however, as it lies before us in Matthew and Luke, corresponds with the highest 
internal truth to the main relations of the opposition directed by the power of the devil 
against the second Adam and His kingdom,—an opposition which is decidedly to 
be recognized from the very beginning onwards to the end, and victory over 
which was the condition of His whole work. In this way the contents of the nar- 
rative, the psychological factors of which are quite as much the temptability as the sin- 
lessness of the Lord, certainly belong to the history, but not as a concrete occurrence 
with its three individual acts, but as a summary reflection of the work of Jesus in 
His vocation in relation to the demoniacal kingdom, without, however, our being 
obliged to assume as an historical foundation any internal temptation taking place in 
thought, and any originally symbolic representation of the same, which was trans- 
formed into actual history in the course of tradition (de Wette). This founda- 
tion is rather the complete victory of our Lord over the craft and power of the 
devil, as the whole course of His Messianic life is a series of temptations by 
the devil, with the result of the latter being conquered both in detail and in 
the main (Heb. ii. 18, iv. 15); comp. John xiv. 30. With profound meaning 
and truth (for from the very beginning must Jesus make experience of the enemy 
of His kingdom, begin the struggle with him, and become certain of the right 
victory) has the synoptic tradition unanimously assigned to the narrative the 
early place which it occupies ; and the attempt cannot be successful to main- 
tain a later special situation as the historical seat of its origin, as Pfleiderer 
does, who transposes the vision which he assumes into the time of ch. xv, 
xvi., making use, moreover, of John vi. 26 for the first act of the temptation. 
That the history of the temptation in Matthew is even a later insertion derived 
from oral tradition (Késtlin), is a very arbitrary inference, from the circum- 


Sorty years’ Auration of the wanderings of 
the people in the wilderness, which Delitzsch, 
Baumgarten, and others drag in here asa 
type.) They are also not excluded by the 
statement of Justin. c. 7%. 103, that, accord- 
ing to the amouvyuov. t. amoor., the devil 
came to Jesus aua td avaBfvar avtov aro Tov 
_ ToTaxov Tod ‘Topdavov, “together with his 
going up from the river Jordan ;” but this 
statement agrees with Marki.12f. As re- 


gards the individual temptations, the jirst 
was thus connected with the forty days’ 
fast of Moses, Deut. ix. 9, 18; the second, 
with the necessity which existed in the 
case of the Messiah of His being accredited 
by miracles ; the third, with the certainty of 
the Messiah’s rie over the world, by means 
of which the government of the devil must 
come to an end. 


102 THE GOSPEL OF MATTHEW. 
stance that ver. 12 does not make any reference to the history of the tempta- 
tions ; Matthew follows Mark, and quotes his short notice from a special 
source. —The existence of Satan, as well as his personality, is attested through- 
out the whole of the New Testament, and is altogether independent of the 
view which may be taken of this individual narrative ; see in answer to Hof- 
mann, Schriftbew., Philippi, Dogm. III. p. 332 ff. ed. 2. 


Ver. 12. Fritzsche gives the sense and connection of vv. 12 to 16 thus : 
‘‘ Post conditi in carcerem Johannis famam discessit Jesus in Galilaeam, et 
relicta Nazaretha Capharnaumi quidem consedit, ut, quemadmodum apud 
prophetam est, magnis, amisso Johanne, tenebris oppressi Galilaei splen- 
dida Messiae luce fruerentur,” ‘‘ After the report of John’s being cast into 
prison, Jesus departed into Galilee, and having left Nazareth, settled in 
Capernaum, so that, as it is in the prophet, John being lost, the Galileans, 
oppressed by great darkness, might enjoy the magnificent light of the 
Messiah.” But it appears, from the words in ver, 12, that Jesus, upon 
learning that the Baptist had been delivered over to Herod, deemed it dan- 
gerous to appear in the same district where the latter had baptized and 
excited so much attention, and that therefore He withdrew into the more 
remote Galilee (comp. xii. 15, xiv. 13). This belonged, indeed, to the 
dominion of Herod Antipas, who had caused the Baptist to be apprehended 
(xiv. 3) ; but it removed Jesus more from his attention and that of the 
hierarchical party, and gave Him the natural retirement of home. Accord- 
ing to John iii. 24, John had not yet been apprehended, and the journey to 
Galilee was occasioned by the marriage at Cana (ii. 1). In Luke iv. 14 no 
external reason is stated for the journey, which is a later avoidance of the 
inaccuracy of the earlier tradition (retained in-Mark and Matthew) (in 
answer to. Schneckenburger). The contradiction, however, between Mat- 
thew and John is to be recognized, and to the latter is to be assigned the 
preference in point of accuracy." Comp. on John iii. 24. A longer inter- 
vening period between the temptation and the return to Galilee is not 
hinted at by Matthew (nor even by Mark), and is excluded by Luke. 

Vv. 13, 14. Kadapvaotu| so, with Lachmann, Tischendorf, we must write 
DN] V2, vicus Nachumi, not ywpiov rapaxagoewe (Origen), or villa pulcher- 
rima (Jerome). It was a prosperous manufacturing town on the north-west 
shore of the Lake of Tiberias. Not mentioned in the Old Test. ; in Jose- 
phus.? It has now disappeared, and not even can its site be determined 
with certainty (Tell Him ? soalso Wilson’s Lands of the Bible, IL. p. 187 ff., 


1 Wecannot say that it is the journey to begins His office as teacher. This holds 


Galilee, John vi. 1, which is intended in our 
passage (Wieseler, chronol. Synopse, p. 161 f., 
and Beitr. z. Wiirdig. d. Hu. p. 174 ff.), for 
that Matthew conceived the journey re- 
corded by him as the jirst after the sojourn 
in the wilderness, is shown not only by the 
whole context, but also by ver. 13 ff., where 
the settling down at Capernaum is related, 
and the reason assigned for it; and 
by ver. 17, where Jesus first actually 


good against the frequent assumption that 
the journey to Galilee, Matt. iv. 12, coincides 
with John iy. 8, 43-45 (Kuhn, Ebrard, Lange, 
Miarcker, Uebereinst. d. Matth. u. Joh., 1868, 
p. 9). Exegetically, the discrepancy must 
remain a blank, which is also recognized by 
Bleek and Keim ; by the latter, however, in 
such a way that he denies to John’s account 
a strictly historical character. 

2 Vit. Ixxii., coun Kepapvouy. 


CHAP. TV., «lo; 16: 103 


and Furer in Schenkel’s Bibeller. III. p. 494 f., likewise Ritter, Ewald, and 
several others ; Robinson,’ Ill. p. 543 ff., and Later Researches, p. 457 ff. ; 
Saulcy, Il. p. 491 ff. ; Ritter, Hrdk. XV. 1, p. 338 ff.). The designation 
of the situation by r. rapafad. and év dpiou, etc. (where the boundaries of 
both tribes touch each other), is given with reference to the following 
prophecy, for which even the position of these boundaries was not a matter 
of indifference,? as, in consequence of it, the settlement in Capernaum had 
reference to the districts of both the tribes. —xaradjur. +. Nafap.] why, 
Matthew does not say, but see Luke iv. 16 ff. Misconceived in Nazareth, 
Jesus preferred as a place of settlement the more populous, and, through 
intercourse with strangers, the more liberally-minded Capernaum. Con- 
sidering His migratory life and work, neither viii. 5 f. nor viii. 20 can be 
regarded as not agreeing with the statement in our passage (in answer to 
Hilgenfeld). 

Vv. 15, 16. As the evangelist, ii. 28, found a prophecy in support of the 
settlement at Nazareth, so also now for the removal to Capernaum, viz. Isa. 
viii, 22, ix. 1 (quoted from memory, but adhering to the LXX.): The land 
of Zabulon and the land of Nephthalim, by the way of the sea, beyond Jordan, 
Galilee of the Gentiles, the people which sat in darkness, and so on. — y7 is not 
the vocative, but the nominative, corresponding to 6 Aadc, etc., ver. 16. The 
article was not required.* As, by the dddv Oaddoonc, the tiv rapatadacciav 
expressed of Capernaum in ver. 13 is prophetically established, so must 
@azdconc, in the sense of the evangelist, refer to the Sea of Galilee, the Lake 
of Gennesareth. These words, namely, determine the situation of y7 Zaj3. 
and y7 Ne@@., and are to be translated seaward. The absolute accusat. dddv 
is quite Hebraistic, like ]1I in the sense of versus,*— a usage which is partly 
retained in the LXX. 1 Kings viii. 48, éddv y#¢ airwv, in the direction of 
their land ; exactly so in 2 Chron. vi. 38, and most probably also in Deut. 1. 
19. In this sense has the evangelist also understood DY 377 in the origi- 
nai text of the passage before us ; so also Aquila and Theodotion, not the 
LXX., according to B (in A, by an interpolation). No completely corre- 
sponding and purely Greek usage is found, as the accusatives of direction,’ 
do not stand independent of a verb. xépav roi "Topd. is not, like ddov Oad., 
a determination of the position of y7 ZaB. and y7 Negé., as these tribes were 
situated on this side the Jordan, while xépay (in answer to Bengel),’ can 
never signify on this side ;" but it designates, after these two lands, a new 
land as the theatre of the working of Jesus, viz. Peraea (comp. on ver. 29), 
whose customary designation was JTW 3), xépav tov "Iopdavov—that is, the 
land east of Jordan. The evangelist includes this land as well as Tada. +. 
éOvov, because it stands in the prophetic passage along with the others (not 
with reference to the Peraean ministry of Jesus, de Wette, Bleek, which 


1 According to Robinson, it is the present 1 Kings viii. 48; 2 Chron. vi. 38; Deut. i. 
Khan Minieh, farther south than TellHfim; 2, 19. 


so also Sepp, Keim. 5 In Bernhardy, p. 1/4f., comp. Kiihner, 
2 In answer to Hengstenberg, Christol. I. II. 1, p. 268 f. 

p. 93. 6 Kuinoel, Linder in the Stud. uv. A7it. 
3 See Winer, p. 114 f.[E. T. 22]. 1862, p. 553. 


4 Ezek. viii. 5, xl. 20, xli. 11 f., xlii.1 ff.; © 7 Crome, Beitr. p. 83 ff. 


104 THE GOSPEL OF MATTHEW. 


has no place here), leaving it, besides, to the reader to decide that it was 
only in yf ZaBovaov . . . Gadrdoonc that the specific element of locality which 
was to be demonstrated from the prophecies was contained. The citation, 
moreover, which specially sets forth that Jesus, after He had quitted Naza- 
reth, settled at Capernaum, on the borders of Zebulon and Naphtali, in their 
telic connection with a divine prediction (iva of the divine determination), 
shows in this very circumstance the Messianic fulfilmentof the historical rela- 
tion of the prophetic declaration, according to which there was announced to 
northern Galilee safety and salvation from the oppression of the Assyrians, 
and consequently theocratical, political salvation. — Tea. 7. é@vov] DVT Ta 
(district of the heathen), that is, in keeping with the originally appellative 
term piel which had become a proper name, Upper Galilee, in the neigh- 
borhood of Phoenicia, inhabited by a mixed population of heathens and 
Jews.’ 

Ver. 16. ‘0 Aade 6 kabjuevoc, x.t.A.] In opposition to Tatiaaia trav evar, 
whose inhabitants are characterized as darkened, that is, devoid of divine 
truth, and sunk in ignorance and sin. The great light, however, which 
these darkened ones saw is Jesus. — kai toic xaOyuévorc, x.T.A.| repeats the 
same thought, with the climactic designation of darkness: éy yopa k. ong 
Oavdrov, in the land and darkness, which belong to death. Death, that is, 
spiritual death (viii. 22, see on Luke xv. 24), the negation of that living ac- 
tivity which recognizes the truth and is morally determined, is personified, the 
land, whose inhabitants are spiritually dead, belongs to it as the realm of its 
government, and darkness surrounds it. The common interpretation of it as 
épy dia Svoiv : ‘in regione et in spissis quidem tenebris = in regione spissis tene- 
bris obducta,” ‘‘hendiadys : ina region and thick darkness = a region cov- 
ered with thick darkness” (Fritzsche), is, indeed, admissible, but unneces- 
sary,? and takes away from the poetic description, which is certainly 
stronger and more vivid if @avdrov is connected not merely with coxa (nYDY, 
infernalis obscuritas, i.e. crassissima), but also with yépa. On the significant 
kabjuevoc, comp. Lam. J.c. Pind. Ol. i. 133 : év oxdr@ Kabjyevoc.* 

Ver. 17. ’Aro tére| from that time onwards—that is, after this return to 
Nazareth and Capernaum. It determines the commencement of the preach- 
ing not merely from Capernaum onwards. In the N. T. azo rére stands only 
here, xvi. 21, xxvi. 16 ; Luke xvi. 16. More frequently in the writers of 
the xow7, LXX., Ps. xciii. 2.4 Bac. tv oipavav] See on ili. 2. Jesus in 
the presence of the people does not yet designate Himself as the Messiah, 
but announces in quite a general way the nearness of the Messianic kingdom, 
the divinely-ordained bearer of which He knew Himself to be ; this is quite 
in keeping with the humility and wisdom of His first appearance, when He 


1 Strabo, xvi. p. 760; 1 Mace. v. 15: Tada. Comp. especially, Jacobs, ad Anthol. VI. p. 
addAobvAwv. Its geographical Jimits are de- 397; Bremi, ad Dem. Phil. I.p.119. Nagels- 


fined by Joseph. Bell. iii. 3. 1. bach on Hom. JJ. i. 184. — avrots] see Winer, 
2See Fritzsche, Huc. IV. p. 856; Nagels- p. 189 f. [E. T. 265] ; Buttmann, p. 125 [E. T. 
bach on Hom. Ji. iii. 100. 381]. 
3** Sedendi verbum aptum notandae soli- 4 Wetstein in loc. Not in classical writers. 
tudini inerti,’ ‘‘a verb of sitting suitable Phrynichus, ed. Lobeck, p. 461. 


for denoting a waste wilderness”? (Bengel). 


CHAP. Iv., 18-20. 105 


resumed the preaching of John. The view, that at the beginning He did 
not regard Himself as the Messiah, but only as a forerunner like John, and 
only at a later time appropriated to Himself the Messianic idea (Strauss, 
Schenkel), is in contradiction to all the four Gospels. But in His self-attes- 
tation as the Messiah He proceeded to work, according to the Synoptics, in 
a more gradual manner than He did according to John.’ 

Ver. 18. Comp. Luke v. 1 ff. — 6ddacc. rij¢ Tada.] Lake of Gennesareth 
or Tiberias (see on John vi. 1) is 140 stadia long and 40 broad, with ro- 
mantic environs, and abounding in fish (Josephus, Gell. ii. 10. 7), about 500 
feet below the level of the Mediterranean.’ — roy Zeyou. Tlétpov] not a barepov 
mpérepov, but see on xvi. 18. That the evangelists always have (with the 
exception of the diplomatic passage, John i. 43) the name Peter, which in 
Paul is certainly found only in Gal. ii. 7 f., not Cephas, is explained in the 
case of Matthew by the circumstance that his Gospel is only a translation, 
and that at the time of its composition the Greek name had become the 
common one. 

Vv. 19, 20. Aeire bricw pov] come here after me! *I08 197 (2 Kings vi. 19; 
1 Kings xi. 5), be my pupils. The disciples were in constant attendance on 
their teacher. * — roujow. . . dvOpérwv| LI will put you in a position to gain men, 
that they may become members of the kingdom of the Messiah. Words borrowed 
from the domain of hunting and fishing (Jer. xvi. 16) often denotes the win- 
ning over of souls for themselves or others.‘ Here the typical phraseology 
suggested itself from the circumstances. — eifiwc| belongs to agévtec, not to 
KoA. — Kor. | as disciples. — cataprig., either arranging (Bengel) or repairing 
(Vulgate and most commentators). We cannot determine which ; Luke 
has arérAvvav. 


Remark.—The want of harmony between Matthew iv. 18 ff. and John i. 35 
ff. is to be recognized, and is not (as the Fathers of the church, Kuinoel, Gratz, 
Olshausen, Hofmann, Krabbe, Neander, Ebrard, Arnoldi, Luthardt, Bleek, 
Riggenbach, Lange, Ewald, Hausrath, Mircker, have attempted) to be removed 
by supposing that in Matthew it is a second calling of the apostles in question 
that is recorded, viz. that they had already been at an earlier date (John i. 35 ff.) 
disciples of Jesus in the wider sense of the word, but that now for the first 
time they had become so in the narrower sense--that is, had become apostles. 
Comp. on John, remark after ch. i. Matthew does not even agree with Luke 
v. 4 ff. See remarks on the passage, and Keim, Gesch, J. II. p. 215. We must 
in any case (in answer to Baur, Hilgenfeld) seek the true history of the occur- 
rence in John, in whose account a merely preliminary adherence to Jesus is the 
less to be thought of, that immediately afterwards of paSyrai aitov go with Him 
to Cana (ii. 2), to Capernaum (ii, 12), and to Jerusalem (ii. 17, 22). This also 
in answer to Liicke on John, I. p. 466 f., and to Wieseler, who distinguishes a 
threefold act in the selection of the disciples : the preliminary calling in John i, 
35 ; the setting apart to be constant attendants, Matt, iv. 18 ff., ix. 9 ff. ; and 


1Comp. Gess, Christi Person u. Werk, 1. p. 599 ff. 
247 ff. 3 Schoettgen, Hor. in loc. 

* See Robinson, Pal. III. pp. 499, 509: 4 Wetstein and Loesner, Hemsterhusius, 
Ritter, Hrdk. XY. 1, p. 284 ff. ; Riietschi in ad Lucian. Dial. Mort. viii. ; Burmann, @d 
Herzog’s Encykl. V.; Keim, Gesch. J. I. p. Phaedr. iy. 4. Comp. on 2 Cor, xi. 20. 


106 THE GOSPEL OF MATTHEW. 


the selection of the Twelve to be apostles, Matt. x. 2-4. Wieseler (chronol. 
Synopse, p. 278) lays especial weight on the circumstance that John names rov¢ 
dédexa for the first time in John vi. 67. But John in general, with the excep- 
tion of this passage (and the verses 70 and 71 belonging to it), only once again 
expressly mentions the rove dodexa (viz. in xx. 21), which is determined by the 
antithetic interest in the context. Especially in vi. 67 are the Twelve opposed 
to those others, many of whom had deserted Him. Previously, however, John 
had no opportunity, where this or any other antithetical relation might give 
him occasion, to give prominence to the number of the Twelve.-—Besides, the 
history of the calling in Matthew, if it were not in contradiction to John, would 
by no means bear in itself a mythical character (Strauss finds in it a copy of the 
call of Elisha by Elijah, 1 Kings xix. 19 ff.), but is to be explained from the 
great, directly overwhelming impression made by the appearance of Jesus on 
minds prepared for it, which Matthew himself experienced (ix. 9); and this 
also is to be applied to the Johannine account. This narrative, which 
Schenkel and Keim relegate to the sphere of free invention, does not exclude 
the profound and certainly original words, ‘‘ fishers of men,” which may have 
proceeded from the mouth of Jesus to His first called disciples on that day, 
Johni. 40 ; and upon the basis of these words the narrative of the call, as it is 
preserved in Matthew and Mark, might easily be formed. 


Vv. 23, 24 serve by way of introduction to the Sermon on the Mount, 
where the description is manifestly exaggerated as regards the time of the 
Jirst ministry of Jesus, and betray the work of a later hand in the redaction 
of our Gospel. Comp. ix. 35. — The synagogues were places of assembly for 
public worship, where on Sabbaths and feast days (at a later period, also 
on the second and fifth days of the week,’ the people met together for 
prayer, and to listen to the reading of portions of the Old Testament, 
which were translated and explained in the vernacular dialect. With the 
permission of the president, any one who was fitted might deliver addresses.” 
In the N. T. only in Matthew (x. 35, x. 1). —év r@ 2a6] belongs to Gepaz. 
Comp. Acts v. 12, vi. 8. — Observe that such summary accumulations of the 
activity of Jesus in healing as v. 23 f. (viii. 16, xii. 15) are not mentioned 
in John’s Gospel. They are, moreover, especially at so early a date, not in 
keeping with the gradual progress of the history, although explicable 
enough in the case of a simple historian, who, easily anticipating the repre- 
sentation which he had formed from the whole history, gives a summary 
statement in the account of a single portion of the narrative. 

Ver. 24. Hic oAnv tyv Xvpiav| His reputation spread from Galilee into the 
whole province, — rdvrac¢ trove Kaxac éyovtac] all the sufferers that there were. 
The following rockid. vécore belongs not to Kaxoc¢ éyovrac (Syriac, Euth. Ziga- 
benus), but to cvveyouévovc. —vécae x. Bacavorc| Sicknesses and torments.—The 
first is general, the last special. — «at dacuov. Kal ceAnv. x. tapadvt.| makes 


1 Jerusalem Megiliah, f. 75. 1; Babylonian every kind of sickness which was brought to 
Bava Cama, f. 82. 1. Him. See Hermann, ad Viger. p. 728, mada- 

2 Vitringa, de synagoga velterum, Franecker xia, weakness, deprivation of strength through 
1696 ; Keil, Archdol. §30; LeyrerinHerzog’s _ sickness. Herod. Vit. Hom. 36, and often in 
FEincykl. XV. p. 299 ff.; Keim, Gesch. J. I. p. the LXX. Comp. padakiGonar and parakio, 
432 ff.—aitar] of the Galileans. —7acav| Lobeck, ad Phryn. p. 389. 


CHAP. IV., 24. 107 
prominent three special kinds of what had previously been described in a 
general manner, so that the first «ai is to be rendered : especially also, partic- 
ularly also. — daiwovifouévove| according to the popular view, shared by the 
evangelist : possessed by demons (ix. 34, xii. 26), whose bodies had become 
the seat and organ of demoniacal working ; daiuévov is not a diminutive 
form, little devil (Ewald, Keim), but the neuter of dauévog as substantive.* 
They were real sick persons with diseases of a peculiar character (mania, 
epilepsy, delirium, hypochondria, paralytic condition, temporary dumbness), 
whose sufferings, being apparently inexplicable from physical causes, were 
believed to have their foundation not in an abnormal organization, or in 
natural disturbances of the physical condition, but in diabolical possession— 
that is, in the actual indwelling of demoniac personalities, very many of 
which might even be counted in one sick person (Mark Vv. 9, xvi. 9).? This 
belief, which is conceivable from the decay of the old theocratic conscious- 
ness and of its moral strength, which referred all misfortune to God’s send- 
ing, is, however, a belief which rendered healing possible only through the 
acceptance of the existing view leaving the idea itself untouched, but made it 
all the more certain for the Messiah, who has power over the kingdom of 
devils, and who now, in the pure manifestation of Jesus, accompanied with | 


miraculous working, stood victoriously opposed to all diabolic power.’ If 


3) 


1 See Stallbaum, ad Plat. Ap. Socr. p. 27 f. 

2 After the old view of actual bodily pos- 
session of the sick had, after Balth. Becker 
(bezauberte Welt, iv. 5 ff.), Mead (medica 
sacra, ix.), Wetstein, been, especially by 
Semler, (Comment de daemoniacis, 1760, uw. 
wmstdndliche Untersuch. ad. addmonischen 
Leute, 1762), successfully refuted, and had 
disappeared altogether (see also Timmer- 
mann, de daemoniac. evangelior. 1786; 
Winzer, de daemonologia N. T., 1812, 1821), 
althoughattempts at its defence were not 
wanting (Storr, Opusc. I. p. 53 ff. ; Eschen- 
mayer, Mysticism, 1823; Jahn, Nachtrdge zu 
s. theol. Werken, 1821), the old view was 
again brought forward, partly before (vy. 
Meyer, Bibeldeut. p. 40 ff.; Olshausen on 
Matt. viii. 28, and others), partly after, the 
assaults of Strauss (Krabbe, Hoffmann, 
Ebrard, Arnoldi, Hofmann, Steinmeyer), 
and supported with more or less acuteness, 
and with turns of a partly obscure and eva- 
sive character, especially by means of com- 
parisons with magnetism. Delitzsch, idl. 
Psychol. p. 293 ff.; Ebrard in Herzog’s 
Encykl. TIT. p. 240 ff. Not so, however, 
Lange, IT. 1, 285 ff., who, regarding the con- 
dition asa natural one, refers it to a nervous 
disease, having an elective affinity with de- 
moniacal influences, which the patient as 
well as the people represented to himself as 
possession. By this the old view is not re- 
tained even in appearance. Against its 
tenability, however, irrespective of all ob- 


jections of a physiological and medical 
kind, the following are decisive proofs : (1) 
The non-occurrence of demons in the O. T. ; 
(2) the undisputed healing of the same by 
exorcists (Matt. xii. 27; Mark ix. 38; Jose- 
phus, Andé. viii. 2.5; Justin. c. Tryph. 85 ; 
Lucian. Philopseud. 16); as well as (3) the 
non-occurrence of reliable instances in 
modern times (? Justinus Kerner, Gesch. 
Besessener neuerer Zeit., Carlsruhe 1834), 
although the same sicknesses, which were 
deemed to be demoniacal, are common; 
and (4) the complete silence of John, which 
(comp. especially Luke ix, 49) is the more 
eloquent the more essentially he also re- 
gards miraculous healing as belonging to 
the work of the Messiah, and the conquest 
of the devil as the Messiah’s task. In John, 
moreover, diabolical possession is found 
mentioned (xiii. 27), but not as the effect of 
physical sickness, but of spiritual domina- 
tion and obduracy, the so-called obsessio 
spiritualis. Comp. John vii. 28, viii. 48, x. 
20. Definite references to the expulsion of 
demons from the sick are wanting also in 
Paul’s Epistles, although they might be in- 
cluded with others in 1 Cor. xii. 9. Observe, 
moreover, (5) the demoniacs were not az all 
filled with godless dispositions and anti- 
Christian wickedness, which, nevertheless, 
was necessarily to be expected as the 
result of the real indwelling of devils. 

3 Comp. Ewald, Jahrb. VII. p. 54 ff., also 
Bleek, Neander, p. 237 ff. 


108 THE GOSPEL OF MATTHEW. 


we assume, however, that Jesws Himself shared the opinion of His age and 
nation regarding the reality of demoniacal possession of the sick (Strauss, 
Keim, Weiss), we find ourselves in the dilemma of either being obliged 
again to set up the old doctrine upon the authority of Jesus, or of attrib- 
uting to the latter an erroneous belief not by any means remote from the 
religious sphere, and only of a physiological kind, but of an essentially 
religious character, and which would be irreconcilable with the pure height 
of the Lord’s divine knowledge. — kai ceAnv. x. tapadvt.| Hpileptics, whose 
sufferings, it was observed, increased as the month advanced (Wetstein), 
and sufferers from nervous diseases.‘ Epilepsy also might be of such a kind 
as to be regarded as demoniacal sickness (xvii. 15 ; here, however, is meant 
the form of sickness which is regarded as natural. 

Ver. 25. AexatéAewc| a strip of land with ten cities,? chiefly inhabited by 
the heathen, on the other side of the Jordan, in the north-east of Palestine. 
As to the towns themselves, which were reckoned as included in it, and to 
which Scythopolis, Gadara, Hippo, and Pella certainly belonged, there was, 
so early as the time of Pliny (H. N. v. 16), no unanimity of opinion.* — répva 
tov "Iopdavov] as in v. 15, xix. 1, Mark iii. 8, a geographical name : Peraea,* 
the land east of the Jordan, from Mount Hermon down to the river Arnon. 


Nore py AMERICAN EpItTor. 


IV. 


Dr. Meyer’s ascription of Matthew’s history of the Temptation of Christ to 
a legendary formation has already been noticed in the Preface, to which the - 
reader is referred. Summarily stated, his opinion is: (1) That the legend is 
true as thought, but untrue as history. (2) That Matthew’s story contains ab- 
solute impossibilities and contradictions of the moral character of Jesus, as 
filled with the Spirit (p. 100, et seq.). (8) That the exclusion of this history by John 
from his gospel is a fact of some weight. But the omission of all reference by 
John to the temptation of Christ is sufficiently accounted for if we suppose 
his gospel to be, of purpose, supplementary to the others, and for this suppo- 
sition there is ancient testimony. Points (1) and (2) apparently exclude each 
other ; for it is difficult to perceive how the legend can be ideally true, and at 
the same time contradictory of the moral character of Jesus. To be ideally 
true here means to be conformable to the idea of the Son of God. There is 
nothing in Matthew’s narrative incompatible with the dignity of Jesus, nothing 
out of harmony with the nature of the work He had assumed for mankind, and 
nothing that lowers our estimate of His perfect purity. The contradictions of 
His moral character, supposed to be found in the narrative, are, we apprehend, 
purely imaginary. 

No one has shown better than Dr. Meyer, in few words, the untenableness 
of many of the suppositions which seek to explain the process of the Tempta- 


1 Richter, de paralysi, 1775. Herzog, III.; Holtzmann in Schenkel’s 
2 Josephus, Vit. 9. Bibellex. 
3 Lightfoot, Hor. p. 563 ff. ; Vaihinger in 4 Josephus, Bell. ix. 3.3; Plin. vy. 15. 


NOTE. 109 


tion, while denying, in a greater or less degree, the objective truth of the account 
given by the Synoptists. Ullmann, who supposes that the experience of Jesus 
“consisted in tempting thoughts during a time of mental clearness and self- 
possession,” disposes of the theory of legend inasingle pregnant sentence : ‘* That 
the evangelists,’ he writes, ‘‘ should commence their account of the distinctively 
Messianic portion of Christ’s life, directly with a fable, is entirely inconsistent 
with their character as writers, and is throughout incredible.’’! Thus, among 
those who reject the entire verity of this passage of the gospel history, as given 
us by the Synoptists, there is no agreement ; each theory suppresses the others, 
and the result is confusion. Our most rational course, therefore, is to accept 
this part of the narrative as being equally valid with the other parts, especially 
as it is supported by the same manuscript testimony. 

Reference has been made in the Preface to the point that in the gospels we 
are in the midst of the supernatural. On this Trench says finely, in his notes 
upon the Temptation of Christ : ‘‘ It is nothing wonderful that the endeavors 
should have been many to explain away the Temptation, to exhaust it of its 
supernatural element, and so to reduce it to the level of an occurrence, ex- 
plicable by the laws habitually at work around us and within us. Now 
if our Lord’s life had been itself such an occurrence, it would be certainly 
perplexing to find a fragment of wonder, such as this is, intruding into 
the midst of that life ; nor would the instinct be unnatural, which, as it every- 
where desires moral harmony and keeping, should endeavor in some way or 
another to get rid of an event out of all such harmony and keeping with the other 
events of that life. But if the manifestation of the Son of God in the flesh be 
itself the wonder of all wonders, then that this should be surrounded by a group 
of secondary wonders, that there should be nothing common in His life, or, to 
speak more accurately, very much altogether uncommon, this might have been 
expected beforehand. What would indeed be startling and perplexing would 
be the absence of everything supernatural from such a life—the fact that He 
whose name is Wonderful (Isa. ix. 6) should have fallen at once into the com- 
mon course and order of things, and never, either by what He did or what was 
done in respect of Him, have testified that there was any difference between 
Himself and the other children of men.”’ ? 


1“ Sinlessness of Jesus,” Clark’s Bib. Cabinet, vol. xxxvii. p. 54. 
2“ Studies in the Gospels,” Amer. ed., p. 58. 


110 THE GOSPEL OF MATTHEW. 


CHAPTER Y. 


Ver. 1. aitG] is wanting in Lachm., after B. Correction, with a view to im- 
prove the style. — Ver. 5. Lachm. Tisch. have this verse before ver. 4, but on 
too weak authority (D, 33, Lat. Verss. Syrev™ Or. Eus. and other Fathers). A 
logical bringing together of the trwyol 76 mvevuati and of the zpasic. — Ver. 9. 
avroi] bracketed by Lachm., deleted by Tisch. 8, wanting in C DX, 13, 134, 
Lat. Verss. Syr. Hil. But how easily would the omission occur in writing, 
since here the similarly ending vioi follows (otherwise in ver. 4 ff.) !— Ver. 11. 
pijualis deleted by Lachm. and Tisch, 8, after B D8, Vulg. It. and other Verss. 
andsome Fathers. But as the word is altogether unnecessary as far as the mean- 
ing is concerned, it might easily be omitted, especially after the syllable PON. — 
Wevdduevot is wanting only in D, Codd. of the [t., and some Fathers, includ- 
ing Origen. Suspected, indeed, by Griesbach, and deleted by Fritzsche, 
Tisch. 7 ; wrongly, however, since the word is quite decisively attested (again 
restored by Tisch. 8). A definition that appeared so much a matter of course 
might easily be passed over. — Ver. 13. BAnOjvac éw kai] Lachm. Tisch. 8 ; 
BAnbév écw, after BCS, 1, 33. Anattempt to help out the style. — Ver. 22. eix7] 
is wanting in B &, 48, 198, Vulg. Aeth. Or. and some other witnesses. Ex- 
pressly rejected as spurious as early as Jerome and Augustin. Retr. i. 19, and 
Pseud.-Athan. - Iven. and Hil. place it after doy. Deleted by Fritzsche, Lachm. 
Tisch. It is an inappropriate addition, resulting from bias, although of very 
ancient date (already in Syr. It. Eus.). — Ver 25. The second ce rapadw is want- 
ing only in B &, 1, 13, 124, 127* Arm. Aeth. 13, 124, 127* Chrys. Hilar. Arn, 
Deleted by Lachm. and Tisch. 8. Passed over as unnecessary, because its 
emphasis was mistaken. — Ver. 27. ?/)£n] Elz. adds toic apyaiouc, for which, 
however, decisive testimony is wanting. Taken from vv. 21 and 33. — Ver. 28. 
évwO, abrnv] Elz.: éi8, airic, against decisive testimony. %&, 236, Clem. Or. 
Chrys. Isid. Tert. have no pronoun at all. So Fritzsche and Tisch. 8. But the 
testimony for avry#v is too strong, and the omission might easily have arisen 
from its being unnecessary. — Ver. 30. 34797 eic yéevvav] Lachm. and Tisch.: ei¢ 
yéevvav d7éA9n, after B D? &, Curss. and many Verss. and Fathers; it is uncertain 
whether-also in Or. Correctly ; the Received reading is derived from ver. 29. 
—Ver. 31. 67] is wanting in BDL, Curss. Vulg. It. Chrys. Suspected by 
Griesbach, deleted by Lachm. and Tisch. Rightly. An addition that easily 
suggested itself. See the exegetical remarks on ii. 23. — Ver. 32. d¢ dv azodvon] 
Lachm. and Tisch. 8: de 6 azodtjwr, after BK L M ATI 8, Curss. Vulg. It. and 
other verss. A change made in accordance with vy. 22, 28; Luke xvi. 18, — 
powyao8ar] Lachm. and Tisch. 8: poryev#jva. SoBD 8, Curss. Theoph. Or. 
, Chrys. Theod. A gloss (to be seduced to adultery) to distinguish it from poryarat, 
which follows, Lachm. has afterwards kai 6 aroAghupévnv yaunoac, after B and 
some Curss., connected with the reading wdc 6 avodtwr at the beginning of the 
verse. — Ver. 39. parice:] B 8, 33: parifer ; so Tisch. 8. Correctly ; the future 
is a conformation to ver, 41, — Ver. 42. d’dov] Lachm. and Tisch.: dé¢, after B D 


CHAPRE Ves. 15.2. buh 
8, 13, 124, Clem. The Received reading is taken from Luke vi. 30. — Ver. 44. 
Toic ptcovo.y] Elz.: rode pcovvrac, against the best and most numetous witnesses. 
To exchange, with Lachm. and Tisch., the whole passage from edjoy. to jo. 
dude, after B 8, Curss. Copt. Syre™ and many Fathers (including Or. Eus.), and 
to explain it as an interpolation from Luke, is too bold, since in Luke vi. 27 f. 
the sentences stand in different order. Omissions, however, caused by the 
Homoeoteleuta might easily occur. érnpeatovtrwv dude Kai is, however, very sus- 
picious ; it is wanting in B &, Curss. and many Verss. Or. (five times; he has 
the words twice, but then kai diwk, tude is wanting) ; also in Cypr. Aug. Lucif. 
and in others stands after divwx.; it therefore betrays itself as an interpolation 
from Luke vi. 28. — Ver. 47. adeAgovc] giAovc, in EK LMSAIUL, Curss. Arm. 
Goth. Bas. Lucif., is a gloss. — é6vixoi] Elz., Matthaei and Scholz have reAdva, 
against B D Z &, Curss. Verss. and Fathers. Brought hither from ver. 46, — 
Ver. 48. 6 év Toi¢ ovpavoic] Lachm. and Tisch.: 6 ovpavioc; also approved by 
Griesb., in accordance with very important witnesses. Isto be preferred ; 
the Received reading flowed as a gloss from ver. 45. 


Ver. 1.’ rove dyAove] see iv. 25. The evangelist does not determine either 
the time or place precisely, yet he by no means agrees with Luke vi. 17.— 
The pabyrat abrov are not the twelve apostles (Fritzsche, Hilgenfeld), against 
which ix. 9 is already decisive, but, besides the first four that were selected 
(iv. 18 ff.) His disciples generally, ‘‘qui doctrinam ejus sectabantur,” 
Grotius. —ei¢ 7d époc] The article is not indefinite : wpon a mountain 
(uuther, Kuinoel), which explanation of the article is always incorrect (Ben- 
gel on xviii. 17), but also not generic ; wpon the hilly district, or on the heights 
(Ebrard, Bleek), as dpoc in the singular (on the plural, comp, xviii. 12, xxiv. 
16) in the N. T. is always only a single hill, as in classical writers ; but 
7d bpoc designates that hill which is situated in the place, where Jesus saw the 
byAove.2 Others (Fritzsche, de Wette) make it the well-known hill ; comp. 
Delitzsch : ‘‘ the Sinai of the New Testament ;’” Ewald : ‘‘the holy hill of 
the gospel history.” These are arbitrary presuppositions, opposed to the 
analogy of xiv. 23, xv. 29. It is a misuse of the article, however, to assume 
that in the Gospels the same mountain is always designated by 70 dpoc.* 
Tradition points out the ‘‘mount of beatitudes” as near the town of Saphet.* 

Ver. 2. ’Avoiyew 7rd ordua] after 18 NNd.> Individual instances also 
amongst classical writers.° This phrase belongs to the distinctly descriptive 
style of narrative, and denotes of itself nothing else than the opening of the 
mouth to speak, where the connection alone indicates whether in this 
descriptive element the emphasis of solemnity, of boldness, or the like is con- 
tained or not.?’ Here, where the first extensive discourse of Jesus, which 
forms the great programme for the membership of His kingdom, follows, 


1 See on the Sermon on the Mount, the 
exposition of Tholuck, ed. 5, 1872. [Achelis, 
Die Bergpredigt, 1875.| Luther’s exposition 
(sermons of 1530), which appeared in 1532. 

2 Comp. John vi. 3; Euth. Zigabenus: 7d 
Gpos TO TAnciov. 

3 Gfrorer, heil. Sage, I. p, 189; B. Bauer; 
Volkmar, 


ii’ See Robinson, Palestine, III. p. 485. 
Comp. also Schubert, III. p. 283; Ritter, 
Erdk. XV. 1, p. 887; Keim, Gesch. J. II. p. 
236. 

5 Vorstius, de Hebraismis, p. 703 ff. 

6 Aristophanes, Av. 1720; Aeschylus, 
Prom. 612; Lucian. Philops. 33. 

7 Comp. on2 Cor. vi. 11; Eph. vi. 19. 


112 THE GOSPEL OF MATTHEW. 

the solemn character of the moment, ‘‘He opened His mouth,” is not to be 
mistaken ; compare xiii. 385. A similar indication of purpose in Job iii. 1, 
Dan. x. 16, Acts viii. 35,-x. 34, but not in Acts viii. 14. Luther well says, 
‘There the evangelist makes a preface and shows how Christ placed Him- 
self to deliver the sermon which He intended ; that He goes up a mountain, 
sits down, and opens His mouth, that men may see that He was in earnest.” 
— avrtov¢| tovc wafyrac. Jesus at first directed His discourse to the entire 
circle of His disciples, but kept also in view the oydo/, who, according to 
vii. 28, pressed after Him, and became hearers of the discourse ; see also 
Luke vi. 20, vii. 1. 

Vv. 3-10. The beatitudes in general, in order to set forth, first in a general 
way, the moral conditions of future participation in the Messiah’s king- 
dom.—‘‘That is, indeed, a fine, sweet, friendly beginning of His teaching 
and sermon. For He does not proceed, like Moses, or a teacher of the law, 
with commands, threats, and terrors, but in a most friendly manner, with 
pure attractions and allurements, and pleasant promises,” Luther.— paxdpioc] 3 
What the blessedness is (7¥8) which He means, is stated by all the causal 
sentences * with 67: in vy. 3-10, viz. that which is based on this, that they will 
attain the salvation of the kingdom, which is nigh at hand. —oi rrwyoi rw 
xvebuare] the 0°31), 02383 were those who, according to the theocratic 
promise of the O. T., had to expect the Messianic blessedness (Luke iv. 18). 
Jesus, however, according to Matthew, transports the idea of the poor (les 
miserables) from the politico-theocratic realm (the members of the oppressed 
people of God, sunk in poverty and external wretchedness) into the purely 
moral sphere by means of the dative of more precise definition, 74 rvetare 
(comp. ver. 8) : the poor in reference to their spirit, the spiritually poor— 
that is, those who feel, as a matter of consciousness, that they are in a miserable, 
unhappy condition; comp. Isa. lvii. 15; Prov. xxix. 23. 
intended is then subjectively determined according to the consciousness of 

‘the subject, so that these latter (comp. vv. 4-6) are conceived of as those 
who feel within them the opposite of having enough, and of wanting nothing in a 
moral point of view ; to whom, consequently, the condition of moral poverty 
and helplessness is a familia. thing,—as the praying publican, Luke xviii. 
10 (the opposite in Rev. iii. 17 ;. 1 Cor. iv. 8), wassuch a poor man. We have 
neither to supply an ‘‘ also” before 76 rveiari, nor, with Baur, to explain it 
as if it meant of rrwyol, adAd tO rvebuate Tobo10r 3; comp. 2 Cor. vi. 10.4 


The xzrwyeta 


1“ Tnitiale hoc verbum toties repetitum 
indicat scopum doctrinae Christi,’ ‘‘ This 
initial word so often repeated shows the 
goal of Christ’s doctrine,’ Bengel. 

2 These causal sentences justify also the 
usual enumeration of the Makarisms as the 
“seven beatitudes.’’ For vv. 3 and 10 con- 
tain the same promise, which, therefore, is 
to be counted only once in order to retain 
the number seven; comp. Ewald, Jahrd. I. 
p. 133; also Kostlin and Hilgenfeld. Others, 
like Weizsiicker and Keim, counting ver. 10 
specially with the others, arrive at the 


number eight. But Delitzsch, to bring out 
an analogy with the Decalogue, reckons, 
besides the maxapror in ver. 11, the xatpete x. 
ayadd,. also in ver. 12, as ‘the full-sounding 
finale,’’ and in this way knows how to force 
out ten beatitudes. 

3See Isa. Ixi. 1, Ixvi. 2, and the post- 
exilian Ps. xxxvii. 11. 

4Chrysostom is substantially correct 
(comp. Theophylact) : ot rareuvol x, cvvTeTpipm- 
Bevo THY Scavoray, ‘‘ the lowly and broken- 
hearted.”” Comp. de Wette in the Stud. von 


Daub und Creuzer, IT. 2, p. 309 ff. ; de morte 


CHAP. V., 4. 1138 
Comp. imide rvebuart, Eccles. vii. 8. They are not different from the ju) 
B2érovrec in John ix. 39. They know that in point of knowledge and moral 
constitution they are far from divine truth. The declaration that such are 
blessed, however, at the beginning of the Sermon on the Mount, is in perfect 
accordance with the fundamental condition of participation in the kingdom 
of the Messiah, the yeravocire, with the call to which both Jesus and John 
began their public appearance. The rroyeia 7H rvebware is the precondition 
of rAovreiv ec Oedv (Luke xii. 21), and of becoming a true rAobo.o¢ TH TvEebwaTe 
(Barnabas 19). These poor people are humble, but we are not to say that 
rrwy. tT. Tv. signifies the humble (in answer to Kuinoel and older interpret- 
ers) ; for which reason we have not to appeal to Isa. Ixvi. 2, where 11) 
does not agree with "3." Older Catholics (Maldonatus and Corn. 4 Lapide), 
after Clement of Alexandria and many Fathers, taking rveiyati of the self- 
determination, misused our passage in support of the vow of voluntary pover- 
ty.? Others (Olearius, Michaelis, Paulus) connect ro rvebuare with paxdpuor : 
the poor are spiritually happy. Opposed to this is the position of the words and 
ver. 8. Moreover, no example is found in the N. T. or in the Jewish writ- 
ings, where, in the case of beatitudes, to the waxdpzoc, or “WR, or 1330, any 
more precise designation of fortune was immediately subjoined.* Accord- 
ing to Késtlin, p. 66, the 4 mvetyari, which is not expressly read in the Clem- 
entines (see Homily xv. 10) and Polycrates ii. (as also tiv dixavoo. ver. 6), is 
said to be a limiting addition proceeding from later reflection, one of the 
many changes which must be assumed as having taken place i in the original 
collection of discourses.* But see on Luke vi. 23. —7 fac. r. obp.] the king- 
dom of heaven belongs to them (see on iii. 2), namely, as a certain possession 
in the future. Comp. the following futwres. Observe in all the beatitudes, 
vv. 3-10, the symmetrically emphatical position of airav, airoi ; it is just 
they who. 
Ver. 4. 01 revfowvrec] Comp. Isa. 1xi. 2, lvii. 17 f. After Chrysostom, these 
have frequently been understood as those who mourned over their own sins 
and those of others. These are not excluded, but they are not exclusively 
or specially meant by the general expression (Keim). They are generally 
those who are in suffering and distress. Think, for example, of Lazarus, of 
the persecuted Christians (John xvi. 20 ; Heb. xii. 11), of the suffering re- 
pentant ones (2 Cor. vii. 9); and so on ; for that no unchristian revfeiv, no 
airn tod kécuov, is meant, is (2 Cor. vii. 10) understood of , itself from the 


expiat, p. 86f. Jerome strikingly says: ol rrwxol TH Svavola, as Origen, de princ. iv. 


“ Adjunxit spirifu, ut humilitatem intelli- 
geres, non penuriam,” ‘‘ He added, in spir- 
it, that you might understand by it low- 
liness, not want.” 

1 Fritzsche, in a way that is not in har- 
mony with the moral nature and life of the 
whole discourse, limits the meaning to that 
of discernment ; “* Homines ingenio et erudi- 
tione parum florentes,” ‘‘men flourishing to 
small extent in ability and education :’’ so 
also Chr. Fritzsche, Nov. Opusec. p. 241, in 
which meaning (consequently equivalent to 


22, calls the Ebionites) the saying was al- 
ready made a subject of ridicule by Julian. 

2On the other hand, Calovius strikingly 
remarks: ‘“‘ Paupertas haec spiritualis non 
est consilii, sed praecepti,” ‘This spiritual 
poverty is not of counsel, but of com- 
mand.”’ 

3 Comp. especially, Knapp, Scripta var. 
arg. pp. 351-880. 

4Comp. also Hilgenfeld, Ewald, Bleek, 
Wittichen, Jahrb. f. D. Theol. 1862, p. 323; 
Holtzmann, p. 176; Schenkel, and others. 


Tita THE GOSPEL OF MATTHEW. 


whole surroundings. The zevJovvrec shall, Rom. viii. 18, 2 Cor. iv. 17, 
John xiv. 18, be comforted as a matter of fact in the Messiah’s kingdom by 
the enjoyment of its blessedness (Luke ii. 25), xvi. 25), therefore the Mes- 
siah Himself is also called DMI. According to the beatitudes, which all 
refer to the Messiah’s kingdom, there is no mention of temporal comfort by 
the promise of the forgiveness of sins, and so on.” 

Ver. 5. According to Ps. xxxvii. 11, where the LXX. have oj dé rpaei¢ 
KAnpovougcovor yiv. The mpaeic (xi. 29, xxi. 5) are the calm, meek sufferers re- 
lying on God’s help, who, without bitterness or revenge as the razevvoi x. 
fobyeo. (Isa. lxvi. 2), suffer the cruelties of their tyrants and oppressors. * 
The very ancient popular (Gen. xv. 7 f.) theocratic conception : to come'into | 
possession of the land (of Palestine) (in Ps. xxxvii.: after the expulsion of 
their haughty enemies), has been raised to its antitypical Christian idea, so 
that the Messiah’s kingdom and the receiving possession of it is intended. 
Comp on Gal. iii. 18 ; Eph. i. 11. 

Ver. 6. Concerning req and dupjv, which regularly govern the genitive 
with the accusative, where the object is conceived as that which endures the 
action, see examples of this rare use in Kypke, Obss. I. p. 17 ; Loesner, Obss. 
p. 11; and especially Winer, p. 192 [E. T. 256]. The metaphorical mean- 
ing (Isa. lv. 1 ; Ps. xlii. 3 ; Sir. li. 24) of the verbs is that of longing desire.* 
The dixatcocivy, however, is the righteousness, the establishment of which was 
the aim of Christ’s work, and the condition of participation in the Messiah’s 
kingdom. They are designated as such whose ‘‘ great earnestness, desire, 
and fervor” (Luther) are directed towards a moral constitution free from 
guilt. Luther, besides, strikingly draws attention to this, that before all 
these portions of the beatitudes, ‘‘faith must first be there as the tree and 
headpiece or sum” of righteousness. — yoptac#joovra] not generally regni- 
Messiani felicitate (Fritzsche), but, as the context requires, Sixacoobvyc : they 
will obtain righteousness in full measure, namely, in being declared to be 
righteous (Rom. v. 19 ; Gal. v. 5, and remarks thereon) at the judgment of 
the Messiah (Matt. xxv. 34), and then live for ever in perfect righteousness, 
so that God will be all in all (1 Cor. xv. 28). Comp. 2 Pet. iii. 13. On 
he figurative yoptét., Ps. xvii. 15, evii. 9. : 

Ver. 7. Oi éAehuovec} the compassionate (Heb. ii. 17 ; Hom. Od. v. 194) in 
general, not, as de Wette arbitrarily limits it, in opposition to the desire for 
revenge and cruelty against the heathen, which were contained in the ordi- 
nary Messianic hopes. —é/eyjoovrac] that is, in this way, that they get 
assigned to them the salvation of the Messiah’s kingdom, which will be the 
highest act of the divine compassion, Luke i. 72 ; Rom. ix. 16, v. 17. The 
divine maxim, which lies at the foundation of the statement, Matt. vii. 2, 
xxv. 35. Kienlen is wrong when he says the éAey@. refers to the forgiveness 





1 Schoettgen, Hor. II. p. 18; Wetstein, I. KLU}TEWS THS UT Opyns* Kpacts Wux7s TUMMETPOS, 


p. 665. ““Meekness is a calming down of excite- 
2 This in answer to Kienlen in the Stud. wu. ment produced by passion; a moderated 
Kritik. 1848, p. 681. temperament of soul.” Comp. 1 Pet. iii. 4. 
3 The opposite is xademoi (Plat. Pol. vi. p, 4See Pricaeus and Wetstein in Joc. ; as 


493 B), mexpoc (Dem. 315, 5), aypror, and the regards éu., also Jacobs, ad Anthol. VI. p. 
like ; Plat. Def. p. 412. D: mpadtys katacracis 26, VIII. p. 283. 


CHAPS Vagics o- 115 


of the sins which still cleave even to the regenerate ; it points to this, that 
the entire bestowal of Messianic salvation is the work of divine grace, which 
follows in its procedure its own moral rules (faith working by Jove). 

Ver. 8. Oi xafapoi 7H kapdia| denotes the moral blamelessness of the inner life, 
the centre of which is the heart, in conformity with the view that raca dpapria 
pbrov évribjor TH woyn, ‘‘ Every sin puts a foul mark on the soul.” ? How this 
purity is actually attained (by justification and the sanctification of be- 
lievers) remains even now left over to the future.—rdv Oedv dyovrac} 
certainly refers, according to the analogy of all the other beatitudes, 
to the aidv péAtwv, but is not (in ‘accordance with the Oriental idea 
of great good fortune in being an intimate friend of the king’s, 1 
Kings x. 8; Esth. i. 14) to be taken as a typical designation of the 
Messianic happiness in general (Kuinoel, Fritzsche, and others), nor as an 
inward seeing of God (knowledge, becoming conscious of God, inmost fellowship 
with God), as de Wette also understood it to mean direct spiritual fellow- 
ship with God here on earth and there in heaven ; but, as the words do not 
allow us to understand it differently : of the seeing of God who gloriously re- 
veals Himself in the Messiah’s kingdom, a seeing which will be attained in the 
condition of the glorified body. Passages like Ex. xxxiii. 20, John i. 18, 
vi. 46, Col. i. 15, Rom. i. 20, 1 Tim. vi. 16, are not opposed to it, because 
they refer to seeing with the earthly eye. The seeing of God, who, although 
Spirit (John iv. 24), has His essential form of manifestation (Phil. ii. 6), 
will one day be the consummation of the zpocaywy4 obtained through Christ 
(Rom. v. 2). Comp. Clem. Hom. xvii. 7. 

Ver. 9. Oi elpyvorooi] not the peaceful (eipyrvixot, Jas. ii. 17, 2 Mace. v. 25 5 
or eipyvebovrec, Sir. vi. 7), a meaning which does not appear even in Pollux, 
i. 41, 152 (Augustine thinks of the moral inner harmony ; de Wette, on the 
contrary, of the inclination of the contemporaries of Jesus to war and tumult ; 
Bleek reminds us of Jewish party hatred), but : the founders of peace,* who 
as such minister to God’s good pleasure, who is the God of peace (Rom. xvi. 
.20; 2 Cor. xiii. 11), as Christ Himself was the highest Founder of peace 
(Luke ii: 14; John xvi. 33 ; Eph. ii. 14 ff.). —viot @eot KAnfyo.| again a 
characteristic designation of community in the future kingdom of the Messiah, 
so far, namely, as the participators in it have obtained the viofeoia, a rela- 
tion which begins with their reception into the kingdom ; comp. on Luke 
vi. 85. If we import the conception of being loved by God (Kuinoel), or of 
resemblance to God (Paulus, de Wette), and the like, then we are not in har- 
mony with the expression, and, contrary to the context, we identify it with 
the conception of the temporal Sonship of God, as it appears in John as a 
being begotten by God ; in Paul, as adoption ; see John i. 12, 14. Cer- 
tainly this temporal Sonship is the moral premiss of that future one ; but it 
is only the latter which can here be meant ; comp. Rom. viii. 19, 23. — KAnfij- 
covrar] What they are is designated as expressly recognized by the (honorable) 


1 Origen, Hom. in Joh. \xxiii.2. Comp. Ps. xii. 14. 
Ixxifi. 1, xxiv. 4; 1 Tim. i. 5, iii. 9; Plat. 3 Xen. Hist. Gr. vi. 3. 4; Plut. Mor. p. 
Crat. p. 403 E. wuxn xabapa, p. 405 B, al. 279 B; comp. Col. i. 20; Prov. x. 10. 

? Rey. vii. 15, xxii. 4; 1 John iii. 2; Heb. 


116 ; THE GOSPEL OF. MATTHEW. 


name in question, by which they are called. That kadeicAac does not stand 
for civaz. See Fritzsche on i. 16 ; Winer, p. 571 f. [Eng. Tr. 769].! 


Remarx.—In the beatitudes, vv. 3-9, the various characteristic designations 
of the Messianic happiness ingeniously correspond to the various designations 
of the subject, so that in the first declaration, ver. 3, the subject of the promise, 
the kingdom of the Messiah, is named expressly, and as a whole, and in the fol- 
lowing it is always those individual sides of the happiness of this kingdom that 
are brought forward which correspond to the subjects designated. Thus, to 
those who mourn corresponds the state of being comforted ; to the patient 
sufferers, who now allow themselves to be oppressed, the future condition of 
possession and mastership; to the hungry, that of being filled; to the 
merciful, the receiving of mercy ; to the pure in heart, the seeing of God, of 
which no impure person is capable ; to the founders of peace, the sonship of 
God, who Himself in His own Son has reconciled men to Himself, and to one 
another. Merely different beams of light from the same glory. At the close, 
after the seven independent beatitudes, in ver. 10, which is the foundation and 
transition to the following direct address, the Messiah’s kingdom is once more 
expressly named, andas a whole, as in the beginning, ver. 3. In this way vv. 3- 
10 form an ingenious and profound harmonious whole. To this unity and com- 
pleteness belongs also the series of the subjects, which, taken together, set forth the 
whole position (vv. 3-5) and the whole endeavors and life (vv. 6-9) of the future 
member of the kingdom. For as to his position, he is full of lowly feeling (ver. 
3), a bearer of suffering (ver. 4), in quiet patience (ver. 5). But as to his endeav- 
ors and life: full of fervor after moral perfection (ver. 6), he cherishes towards 
others the feeling of compassionate love (ver. 7), and by the purity of heart 
which he attains (ver. 8), his outward actions tend towards peace (ver. 9), 
whether he also suffer persecution (this by way of transition to ver, 11) for 
righteousness’ sake—all springing from the one root, faith in his Lord. 


Ver. 10. Comp. 1 Pet. iii. 14, iv. 14. — dixauocby., as in ver. 6 évex. dix., 
is, as to substance, not different from évexev éuov, ver. 11. In communion 
with Christ there is righteousness, and in this évexey éuod is expressed the 
full Messianic consciousness,* the certain holy self-feeling of which for the 
persecuted begins (Acts ix. 4).—To take the airév éorw 7 Baord. r. obp. dif- 
ferently from ver. 8,° is purely arbitrary. See rather the preceding remark. 

Vv. 11, 12. Comp. Isa. li. 7 ff. Application of ver. 10 to the disciples. 
To explain évedifew, to make reproaches,* and didxew (comp. 1 Cor. iv. 12), 
with Beza, Raphel, and Wolf, of indignities and accusations before the court, 
is an unwarrantable limitation. The whole of the hostility which is to 


1 Comp. Eur. Hec. 625: 0 & év modtrats Timtos sonal assertion comes out strongly enough ; 
kexAnevos, “He who among citizens bears comp. especially the constant symmetrical 
the name of honorable;” and Pflugk on recurrence of éy dé Aéyw vuiv, and immedi- 
the passage ; Hom. J/. ii. 260; and Nagels- ately in ver. 17 the expression of the Messi- 
bach én loc. anic consciousness, 7AQov, «.T.A. 

2This putting forward the person as 3 Kienlen in d. Stud. u. Krit. 1848, p. 678: 
Lord and Master is, in Weizsiicker’s view, p. ver. 3is the entrance into the kingdom of 
151, a reason for regarding ver. 11 f. as a God ; ver. 10, the consummation in the same, 
later explanation to the original text. But comp. Lange. 
even in the whole train of the discourse that 4 Wurm, Dinarch. p. 77. 
follows from ver. 17 onwards, such a per- 


OmeP, V., 12, 15. Tt 


assail His disciples stands even now before the soul of the Lord, and He 
prepares them for it ; there is accordingly no reason to see in vy. 10-12 an 
addition by the evangelist (Hilgenfeld).—The wevdduevor, which is to be de- 
fended as genuine (see the critical remarks), easily and appropriately connects 
itself with af’ juév, so that the latter forms with évexev éuov an emphatic 
correlative ; the whole participial definition, however, from eizwox to pjua, is 
appended as a statement of modality, ‘‘in their speaking falsely against you 
Jor my sake”—that is, because you belong to me, which is their motive for 
making lying statements against you. On webdeo8ac with card, contra, comp. 
Jas. iii. 14 ; often thus amongst Greek writers. 

Ver. 12. ‘0 puc6éc] comp. katepyafera, 2 Cor. iv. 17, and remarks thereon. 
The article denotes : the reward which is destined, kept in readiness for you, ! 
and that for the indignities, persecutions, and lies borne through faith in me. 
— éy roi¢ ovpavoic] is great in heaven. A reference to the book of life? is not 
yielded by the text, which only presents the idea that the reward is laid up 
in heaven until the future communication of it, which begins with the 
establishment of the kingdom, and therefore not Zora, but éor/, is to be sup- 
plied ; and this is to be taken not as irrespective of time (de Wette), but as 
present. — ydp] assigns the reason from the recognized certainty (x. 41) that 
to the prophets, who formerly were persecuted in like manner (xxiii. 29 ff.), 
great reward is reserved in heaven for future communication in the kingdom 
of the Messiah.—The prophets (comp. vii. 52) are a typical example for the 
disciples. On the conception of juc0éc, which xara yapw Aoyifera (Rom. iv. 
ajrcomp, xx. i if.; Luke xvii.) 10:° 

Vy. 13-16. The course of thought : The more important and influential 
your destined calling is, all the less ought you to allow yourselves to be 
dispirited, and to become faithless to your calling through indignities and 
persecutions ; youare the sa/t and the light! Weizsiicker rightly claims for 
this section (in answer to Holtzmann, Weiss) originality in this connection, 
in which it attaches itself with great significance to the last beatitude and 
its explanation. 

Ver. 13. To aaac tHe ype] A figure of the power which counteracts corrup- 
tion, and preserves in a sound condition—the effect which salt has upon 
water (2 Kings ii. 20), meat, and such like. Thus the ministry of the dis- 
ciples was destined by the communication of the divine truth to oppose the 
spiritual corruption and powerlessness of men, and to be the means of bring- 
ing about their moral soundness and power of life. An allusion to the use 
of salt in sacrifices (Mark ix. 49) is not hinted at here (in answer to Tholuck).* 
Without this salt humanity would have fallen a prey to spiritual ¢6opa. 
Fritzsche, overlooking the positive efficacy of salt, derives the figure only 
from its indispensable nature. Observe, moreover, how the expression rij¢ 7c, 
as a designation of the mass of the inhabitants of the earth, who are to be 


1 Matt. xxv. 34; Col. i. 5. 4Comp. rather Col. iv. 6; Theodoret, 
2 Fritzsche, Gratz, Phil. iv. 3, Rey. iii. 5, Heracleon (in Cramer, Cat. p. 33): adas rT. 
RDS) Sly or, Danie xis yis €oTw To WuxiKov aptupa, “Salt of the 


8 See generally Weiss in d. Deutsch. earth is the natural seasoning.” 
Zeitschr. 1853, p. 40 ff.; Bibl. Theol. p. 104 ff. 


118 THE GOSPEL OF MATTHEW. 

worked upon by the salt, is as appropriately selected for this figure as rod 
xécuov for the following one. And Jesus thus even now throws down the 
thought of universal destination into the souls of the disciples as a spark to 
be preserved. — popar6j] will have become savorless, Mark ix. 50: dvaiov 
yévarar.'— év tive ddcobgoetac ;| by what means will it again receive its salting 
power ?? Laying figures aside: If you, through failing to preserve the 
powers bestowed upon you, and by allowing them to perish, become in de- 
spondency and torpidity unfaithful to your destiny and unfitted for your 
calling, how will you raise yourselves again to the power and efficiency 
appropriate to your vocation, which you have lost.* Your uselessness for 
your calling will then be an irreparabile damnum !* Luther differently : 
Wherewith shall one salt?® Putting figure aside : Who, then, will supply 
your place ?, However appropriate in itself this meaning might be, never- 
theless cic ovdév ioxier stands opposed to it.° See also Mark ix. 50. — imo 
tov avOp.| ab hominibus ‘‘ obviis quibusque,” Bengel. 

Ver. 14. Td @6¢ Tov kdouov| As the natural light illumines the world, which in 
itself is dark, so are ye intended to spiritually enlighten humanity. Christ is 
principaliter the Light (John i. 4, ix. 8, xii., al.) ; the disciples mediate (Eph. 
lii. 9), as the mediators of His divine truth to men ; and all Christians in 
general are, as those who are enlightened, also, on their part, bringers of 
light, and light in the Lord (Phil. ii. 15; Eph. v. 8).—ov divata réruc, 
«.7.4.] If you would desire timidly to withdraw into concealment (comp. 
vy. 11, 13), then that would be conduct as opposed to the purpose for which 
you are destined as if a town set on a hill should wish to be concealed, or if 
one were to place (ver. 15) a light under a bushel.—No definite town is in- 
tended ; Saphet has been conjectured.*. We are not to think of Jerusalem 
(whose destination the disciples are, in the opinion of Weizsiicker, to realize, 
p- 336). It is just any city in general situated upon a hill. 


1 Dioscoridesin Wetstein : piGar yevoapevw 5 Erasmus, Paraphr.; ‘‘quid tandem 


pwpai, ‘ Roots insipid to one tasting.” 

2 Theophylact : d:opAwAjcerar. 

3 Whether the salt can really become quite 
insipid and without power, and thus lose its 
essential property, is not at all the question. 
Jesus puts the case. We need not therefore 
either appeal, with Paulus, to the salt 
which has been exposed to the weather and 
become tasteless, which Maundrell (Reise 
nach Pal. p. 162; Rosenmiiller, Morgenland, 
in loc.) found in the district of Aleppo, or 
make out of the common cooking salt, 
saltpetre (Altmann, Vriemoet), or asphalt (v. 
d. Hardt, Schoettgen), or sea salt (Ebrard). 

4“Non enim datur sal salis,’ Jansen. 
Grotius well says, “ipsi emendare alios 
debebant, non autem exspectare, ut ab aliis 
ipsi emendarentur,” ‘‘ They themselves 
ought to correct others, but not to wait, in 
order that they themselves may be cor- 
rected by others.” Augustine, de serm. in 
mont. i. 16. 


erit reliquum, quo multitudinis insulsa vita 
condiatur?”’ ‘‘ What at length will be left 
by which the insipid life of the multitude 
may be made savory ?”’ 

® This eis ovdev ioxver, etc., clearly sets 
forth its utter uselessness for the purpose for 
which it was designed, not the exclusion 
from the community, or the being rejected 
by Christ (Luther, Chemnitz, and others), 
to which the idea, ‘‘i¢ is fit for nothing 
but,’ is not appropriate. It would be dif- 
ferent if Christ had said BAndyjcerar €Ew, etc. 
Theophylact understands exclusion from 
the dignity of teacher; Chrysostom, 
Erasmus, and others, the most supreme 
contempt.—Observe, moreover, that the 
expression icxver (has power for nothing ex- 
cept, etc.), and so on, contains an acumen 
in its relation to the following passive 
BAndyvat, ete. 

7 See, on the other hand, Robinson, Pal. 
Ill. p. 587. 


CHAP. V., 15-17. gS) 


Ver. 15. ‘Yrd rdv uddcov]! The article denotes the grain measure that is at 
hand in the house.” It was one-sixth of the pédcuvoc, the pédiuvoc, according 
to Boeckh, 2602 Paris cubic inches [nearly 12 gallons English]. What Hebrew 
measure did Jesus mention? most probably 8&0, as in Mark xiii. 33.— 
The xai is the consecutivum: and, and thus, that is, placed upon the candle- 
stick.* On the amps which were in domestic use, and the candlesticks upon 
which they were placed, see as regards the Greeks, Hermann, Privatalterth. 
RK 20. 

Ver. 16. Oi7w] like a burning lamp upon its stand. —rd d6¢ tur] the 
light, of which you are the trusted possessors. This shines before men, if the 
disciples come forward publicly in their office with fidelity and courage, do 
not draw back, but spread abroad the. géspel boldly and freely. — érwe 
idwow buov, K.7.A.| that they may see the excellent works done by you. These 
are not their virtues in general, but, in accordance with the whole context 
from ver. 11, their ministry as faithful to its obligations, their specific 
works as disciples, which, however, are also of a moral nature. — kai doFdcowor, 
k.7.2.] that He has made you fit (2 Cor. iii. 5) to perform such works, they 
must recognize Him as their author ; comp. ix. 8 ; 1 Pet. ii. 12. The op- 
posite, Rom. ii. 24. —r. rar. tudy rt. tv Toic oip.] see on vi. 9. This designa- 
tion of God, which Christ gives forth from the fundamental standpoint of 
His gospel, already presupposes instructions previously given to the disciples 
upon the point. Observe, moreover, that here it is not iuév which, as 
formerly, has the emphasis. 

Vy. 17-48. Messianic fulfilment of the law by the setting forth of which 
Jesus now, after He had made clear to the disciples their high destiny, 
desired to establish before all other things the relation of His ministry to the 
religion of the Old Testament, introducing it, indeed, with 7) vouiayre, K.7.2. ; 
because the thought of an abrogation of the law by the Messiah (which was 
actually current among the Jews, upon the basis of Jer. xxxi. 31,° and there- 
with a renewal of religion from the very foundation, might easily suggest it- 
self so as to become highly injurious, and might give to the work of the 
disciples themselves an altogether perverted direction, as it was, moreover, 
maliciously laid hold of by their enemies in order to accuse the Lord (xxvi. 
61) and His disciples (Acts vi. 14, xxi. 21). The more designedly Jesus in- 
troduces and carries through this part (of His discourse), the less does it 
suffice to assume the occasion thereto as arising from the law retiring into 
the background in His daily life, and from a neglect of the law thus in- 
ferred (Keim) ; or from this, that Jesus was accustomed to set out, not from 
the law, but from the universal truths of faith, from testimonies of nature 
and life (Weizsiicker, p. 346). In this way the twice sharply emphasized 
‘* destroy” especially would appear altogether out of proportion, 

Ver. 17.6 A connection with what precedes is not to be artificially sought 


1 Fulgentius, iii. 6: ‘“‘lucernamque modio 4 Becker, Charikl. II. p. 214 ff.; as to the 
contegit.”” Greek expression Avxvia, Lobeck, ad Phryn. 

2 On podtos, comp. Plut. Demetr. 33. p. 313. 

3% Comp. iv. 19; Maetzner, ad Lycurgum, 5 See Gfrorer, Jahrh. d. Heils, I. p. 341. 


p. 2538. 6 Special writings upon the passage :— 


120 THE GOSPEL OF MATTHEW. 

out. Jesus breaks off and introduces the new section without any intermedi- 
ate remarks, which corresponds precisely to its pre-eminent importance (for 
He shows how the Christian d:xaocbvn, having its root in that of the Old 
Testament, is its consummation). On py vouic. bri 720., comp. x. 34. — 7] 
never stands for «ai, but is always distinctive. Here, to abrogate the one or 
the other. I have to abrogate neither that nor this. The véuoc is the divine 
institute of the law, which has its original document in the Pentateuch. The 
further Old Testament revelation, in so far as its final aim is the Messiah and 
His work, is represented by oi tpog#ra, who make up its principal part ; ac- 
cordingly, 6 véuoc and oi rpogpras summarily denote the whole Old Testament 
revelation (comp. Luke xvi.\6), partly asa living divine economy, as here ; 
partly as ypadj, as in Luke xxiv. 27.7 Moreover, in the expression rov¢ mpo- 
gytac we are not to think of their predictions as such (the Greek Fathers, Au-, 
gustine, Beza, Calovius, and others ; also Tholuck, Neander, Harnack, 
Bleek, Lechler, Schegg, and others), as nobody could imagine that their ab- _ 
rogation was to be expected from the Messiah, but, as the connection with 
vouo¢e shows (and comp. vii. 12, xxii. 40 ; Luke xvi. 29), and asis in keeping 
with the manner in which the idea is carried out in the following verses, 
their contents as commands, in which respect the prophets have carried on 
the development of the law in an ethical manner.* In véyoc, however, to 
think merely of the moral law is erroneous, as it always signifies the entire 
law, and the distinction between the ritualistic, civil, and moral law is 
modern ; comp. on Rom. iii. 20. If, afterwards, sentences are given from 
the moral law, yet these are only quotations by way of illustration from the 
whole, from which, however, the moral precepts very naturally suggested 
themselves for quotations, because the idea of righteousness is before the 
mind. He has fulfilled the entire law, and in so doing has not destroyed 
the slightest provision of the ritualistic or civil code, so far as its general 
moral idea is concerned, but precisely everything which the law prescribes is 
raised to an ideal, of which the old legal commands are only oroyeia. The- 
ophylact well illustrates the matter by the instance of a silhouette, which 
the painter od xataAtbe:, but carries out to completion, avatAnpoi. — karahioa] 
often employed by classical writers to denote the dissolution of existing con- 
stitutions,* which are thereby rendered non-existent and invalid.°— The 
rinpwoe Of the law and the prophets is their fulfilment by the re-establish- 
ment of their absolute meaning, so that now nothing more is wanting to 
what they ought to be in accordance with the divine ideas which lie at the 


Baumgarten, doctrina J. Ch. de lege Mos. ex 
orat. mont. 1838; Harnack, Jesus ad. Christ 
oder der Erfiiller d. Gesetzes, 1842; J. E. 
Meyer, tiber d. Verhdltn. Jesu und seiner 
Jtinger zum alttest. Gesetz. 1853. See espe- 
cially, Ritschl, altkathol. K, p. 35 ff.; Bleek in 
d. Stud. u. Krit. 1853, p. 804 ; Lechler, ididem, 
1854, p. 787 ff. ; Weiss, ibidem, 1858, p. 50 ff., 
and bibl. Theol. § 27; Ewald, Jahrb. X. p. 
114 ff. The collection of sayings is to be 
simply regarded as the source of this sec- 
tion, not any special treatise upon the 


position of Jesus towards that law (Holtz- 
mann); comp. Weiss in d. Stud. u. Krit. 
1864, p. 56 f. 

1 See Winer, p. 410 [E. T. 549 f.]; comp. 
on 1 Cor. xi. 27. 

2 Acts xxiv. 14, xxviii. 23; Rom. iii. 21. 

3 Ritschl, aitkath. Kirche, p. 36 f. 

4 Specially also of the abrogation of laws, 
Isocr. p. 129 E; Polyb. iii. 8. 2. 

5 Comp. 2 Macc. ii. 22; John vii. 23; also 
vouov Katapyecv, Rom. iii. 31; averetv, Heb. x, 
285 Gal. hii. 15. 


CHAP: V. 7; 121 
foundation of their commands. Jt is the perfect development of their ideal re- 
ality out of the positive form, in which the same is historically apprehended and 
limited. So substantially, Luther, Calvin (comp. before them Chrysostom ; 
he, however, introduces what is incongruous), Lightfoot, Hammond, 
Paulus, Gratz, de Wette, Olshausen, Ritschl, Ewald, Weiss, Hilgenfeld ; 
likewise Schleiermacher,*’ and others. Comp. Tholuck (who, however, 
brings together the too varying elements of different explanations), also 
Kahnis,* who understands it as the development of what is not completed 
into something higher, which preserves the substance of the lower. This 
explanation, which makes absolute the righteousness enjoined and set forth 
in the law and the prophets, is converted into a certainty by the two verses 
that follow. The matter is represented by zAnp. as a making complete,* in op- 
position to cata2ica, which expresses the not allowing the thing to remain, 
Others (Bretschneider, Fritzsche) : facere quae de Messia prescripta sunt ; 
others (Kiiuffer, B. Crusius, Bleek, Lechler, Weizsiicker, after Beza, Elsner, 
Vorst, Wolf, and many older interpreters): legi satisfacere, as in Rom. xiii. 
8, where, in reference to the prophets, tAnp. is taken in the common sense of 
the fulfilment of the prophecies,* but thereby introducing a reference 
which is not merely opposed to the context (see ver. 18 f.), but also an 
unendurable twofold reference of zAnp.° Luther well says: ‘‘ Christ 
is speaking of the fulfilment, and so deals with doctrines, in like manner 
as He calls ‘destroying’ a not acting with works against the law, but a 
breaking off from the law with the doctrine.” The fulfilling is ‘‘showing 
the right kernel and understanding, that they may learn what the 
law is and desires to have.” —T did not come to destroy, but to fulfil; the 
object is understood of itself, but the declaration delivered in this general 
way is more solemn without the addition of the pronoun. 


Remarr.—The Apostle Paul worked quite in the sense of our passage ; his 
writings are full of the fulfilment of the law in the sense in which Christ means 
it ; and his doctrine of its abrogation refers only to its validity for justification 
to the exclusion of faith. It is without any ground, therefore, that this pas- 
sage, and especially vv. 18 f., have been regarded by Baur ° as Judaistic, and 
supposed not to have proceeded in this form from Jesus, whom, rather in op- 
position to the higher standpoint already gained by Him (Schenkel), the 
Apostle Matthew has apprehended and edited in so Judaistic a manner (Kést- 


12. J. p. 814 ff. 

2 Dogmat. I. p. 474. 

3 John xv. 11; 2 Cor. x. 6. 

4 See specially, Euth. Zigabenus, Calovius, 
and Bleek. 

6 Vitringa, who compares ‘7)j, even 
brings out the meaning “to expound.” 
The explanation of Kuinoel goes back to 
the legi satisfacere, but gives as meaning, 
docendo vivendoque stabilire. Comp. Keim, 
“to teach the law, to do it, and to impose 
it.’ The older dogmatic exegetes, who ex- 
plained it by satisfacere, here found the sat- 
isfactio activa. See, for example, Er. Schmid 


and Calovius ; recently, Philippi, vom thdt. 
Gehors. Chr. p. 84; Baumgarten, p. 15. On 
the other hand, B. Crusius and also Tholuck. 
According to Bleek, p. 804, Christ has fulfill- 
ed the moral law by His sinless life, the cer- 
emonial law by His sacrificial death, by 
means of which the prophecies also are ful- 
filled. According to Lechler, Jesus fulfils 
the law as doer, by His holy life and sacrifi- 
cial death ; as deacher, in teaching mankind 
rightly to understand and fulfil the com- 
mandments. 
& Neutest. Theol. p. 55. 


122 THE GOSPEL OF MATTHEW. 


lin, p. 55 f.), or the supposed Matthew has made to speak in so anti-Pauline a 
way ;! according to Hilgenfeld,? ver. 17 is indeed original, but in accordance 
with the view of the Hebrew gospel ; vv. 18 f., however, is an anti-Pauline ad- 
dition ; Weizsiicker sees in ver. 19 only an interpolation ; but Schenkel finds in 
vv. 18 f. the proud assertion of the Pharisee, not Jesus’ own conviction. Paul 
did not advance beyond this declaration,’ but he applied his right understanding 
boldly and freely, and in so doing the breaking up of the old form by the new 
spirit could not but necessarily begin, as Jesus Himself clearly recognized 
(comp. ix. 16; John iv. 21, 23f.) and set forth to those who believed in His 
own person and His completed righteousness (comp. Ritschl). But even in 
this self-representation of Christ the new principle is not severed from the O. 
T. piety, but is the highest fulfilment of the latter, its antitypical consumma- 
tion, its realized ideal. Christianity itself is in so far a law.* 


Ver. 18. "Away yap Aéyo ipiv] for verily (auyv = adnbdc, Luke ix. 27), that 
is, agreeably to the truth, do I tell you. What He now says serves as a con- 
Jirmation of what preceded. This form of assurance, so frequently in the 
mouth of Christ, the bearer of divine truth, is not found in any apostle. — 
éwe Gv wapéAOn, K.7.A.] until heaven and earth shall have passed away. These 
words of Jesus do not indicate a terminus, after which the law shall no 
longer exist (Paulus, Neander, Lechler, Schleiermacher, Planck, Weizsiicker, 
and others), but He says : onwards to the destruction of the world the law will 
not lose its validity in the slightest point, by which popular expression ° the 
duration of the law after the final catastrophe of the world is neither taught 
nor excluded. That the law, however, fulfilled as to its ideal nature, will 
endure in the new world, is clear from 1 Cor. xiii. 3 (ayary) ; 1 Pet. i. 25; 
2 Pet. ili. 8 (dcxatoobvy). The wnending authority of the law is also taught 
by Bar. iv. 1.6 The passage in 1 Cor. xv. 28 is not opposed to our expla- 
nation ; for if God is all in all, the fulfilled law of God yet stands in its 
absolute authority. — iwc av ravta yévyra] not : until all the prophecies are 
fulfilled, that would then be down to the Parousia (Wetstein, J. E. Meyer, 
comp. Ewald) ; nor even till all is carried out theocratically which I have 
to perform (Paulus), or what lies shut up in the divine decree (Késtlin), or 
even until the event shall occur by means of which the observance of the 
law becomes impossible, and it falls away of itself (Schleiermacher) ; but, 
in keeping with the context, wntil all which the law requires shall be accom- 
plished (vi. 10), nothing any longer left unobserved. This sentence is not 
co-ordinate to the first gc, but subordinate." ‘‘So long as the world stands 


1 Gfrorer, h. Sage, II. p. 84. 

2 In his Zeitsch. 1867, p. 374. 

3 Comp. Planck in d. theol. Jahrb. 1847, p. 
268 ff. 

4 Comp. Wittichen, p. 828; Holtzmann, p. 
457 f.; Weizsaicker, p. 348 f.; see also on 
Rom. iii. 27 ; Gal. vi. 2; 1 Cor. ix. 21. 

5 Luke xvi. 17; Job xiv. 12. 

6 Tob. i. 6; Philo, vit. Mos. ii. p. 656; Jo- 
seph. ¢. Ap. ii. 38, and the Rabbins. See 
Bereschith R x. 1, ‘‘omni rei suus finis, 
coelo et terrae suus finis, una excepta re, cui 


non suus finis, haec est lex,’’ ‘‘ To everything 
is its own end, to heaven and to earth its own 
end, one thing only excepted, to which 
there is not its own end, i.e. this law ;” 
Schemoth 2. vi., ‘‘unulla litera aboletur a 
lege in aeternum,”’ ‘“‘No letter is effaced 
from the law for ever;’? Midrash Cohel. f. 
71, 4, dex) “‘perpetuo manebit in secula 
seculorum,” ‘The law will remain forever 
and ever.” 
7 Kiihner, ad Xen, Mem. 1. 2. 36. 


CHAP. V., 19. 128 
shall no iota’ of the law pass away till all its prescriptions shall be realized.” 
All the requirements of the law shall be fulfilled ; but before this fulfilment 
of all shall have begun,’ not a single iota of the law shall fall till the end 
of the world. Fritzsche : ti/l all (only in thought) és accomplished. He as- 
sumes, accordingly, agreeably to the analogous use of conditional sentences, ® 
a double protasis : (1) éw¢ dv rapéAOn, k.7.A., and (2) fue . But 
the parallel passages, Matt. xxiv. 34, Luke xxi. 32, are already opposed to 
this ; and after the concrete and lively éwe av rapéAOy 6 ovpavoe k.  y7, this 
general and indefinite éu¢ av ravra yévytac would be only a vague and lum- 
bering addition. As correlative to év and yia, ravra can only mean all por- 
tions of the law, without, however, any definite point of time requiring to be 
thought of, in which all the commands of the law will be carried out, ac- 
cording to which, then, the duration of the present condition of the world 
would be conformed. This thought is rendered impossible by the nearness 
of the Parousia, according to xxiv. 29, 34, as well as by the growth of the 
tares until the Parousia, according to xiii. 830. The thought is rather, the 
law will not lose its binding obligation, which reaches on to the final realization of 
all its prescriptions, so long as heaven and earth remain. — Observe, moreover, 
that the expression in our passage is different from xxiv. 35, where the perma- 
nency of the Adyo of Christ after the end of the world is directly and defi- 
nitely affirmed, but that in this continued duration of the Adyo. of Christ the 
duration of the Jaw also is implied, i.e. according to its complete meaning (in 
answer to Lechler, p. 797); comp. on Luke xvi. 17. ‘The d:caooivy of 
the new heavens and of the new earth will be no other than what is here 
taught,” Delitzsch. So completely one with the idea of the law does Jesus 
in His spiritual greatness know His moral task to be, not severed from the 
latter, but placed in its midst. 

Ver. 19. Conclusion from ver. 18. On é¢ é4v with the conjunctive of the 
aorist, denoting that which was probably to happen in the future (the con- 
tingent futurum exactum).* — voy] like kxatadioa, ver. 17 ;° Fritzsche and 


. . yévytal. 


1 Tora, the smallest letter, and kepaia, horn, 
a little stroke of writing (Plut. Wor. p. 1100 
A, 1011 D), especially also in single letters 
(Origen, ad Ps. xxxiii.), by which, for exam- 
ple, the following letters are distinguished- 
Sand 3,7 and3,Mand7. See Lightfoot, 
Schoettgen, and Wetstein. Both expres- 
sions denote the smallest portions of the 
law ; see ver. 19. 

2 In this is contained the perpetually abid- 
ing obligation of the law ; for that condi- 
tion of things, in which no part of the law 
remain sunfulfilled, in which, consequently, 
all is accomplished, will never occur until 
the end of the world. Of the ravrta, more- 
over, nothing is to be excluded which the 
law contains, not even the ritualistic por- 
tions, which are to be morally fulfilled in 
their ideal meaning, as e.g. the Levitical 
prescription regarding purification by mor- 
al purification, the sacrificial laws by moral 


self-sacrifice (comp. Rom. xii. 1), and so on, 
so that in the connection of the whole, in 
accordance with the idea of wAyjpwors, not 
even the smallest element will perish, but 
retains its importance and its integral mor- 
al connection with the whole. Comp. 
Tholuck; Gess, Christi Pers. und Werk, 1. p. 
292; and before him, Calvin on ver. 17. 

3 Heindorf and Stallbaum, a@ Plat. Phaed. 
p. 67 ©; Kiihner, II 2, p. 988 f. 

4 See Winer, p. 287 f. [E. T. 385] ; Kiihner, 
Il. 2, p. 929; éév for av, see Winer, p. 291 
[E. T. 390]. 

5 Comp. on Avew in the sense of abro- 
gating, overturning of laws, John vii. 28; 
Herod. iii. 82; Demosth. xxxi. 12. 186. 14. 
Ebrard (on Olshausen) erroneously explains 
it: ‘‘the mechanical dissolution of a law 
into a multitude of casuistical and ritualis- 
tic precepts.”” The tovtwy tav édAaxiotwv 
should have prevented this view. Amongst 


124 THE GOSPEL OF MATTHEW. 
Arnoldi (after Castalio, Beza, Wolf, and others) : transgressus fuerit, on 
account of the zovjoy in the opposition.’ But this roujoy partly forms a very 
appropriate antithesis to the 2io7 in our sense, which, after catazvoa in ver. 
17, would be abandoned only from arbitrariness ; partly there is by no 
means wanting between Ate and diddcxecv an appropriate, z.e. a climactic, 
distinction (they shall declare it to be of no authority, and teach accord- 
ingly); partly it is not credible that Jesus should have declared that the 
transgressor of the law was éAdy.orov év TH Bao. T. odpavov, see xi. 11. Doing 
(rowgon) and teaching (diddEy) refer, as a matter of course, without it being 
necessary to supply any object besides the general word ‘‘is” (translated : . 
whosoever shall have done and taught it), to that which is required in the 
smallest commandment, and that in the sense of the rA#pworc, ver. 17. — trav 
évToAav TovTwv TOV éAayxiotwv| To’Twv points back to what is designated by 
ita and xepaia in ver. 18, not forwards to vv. 22, 28 (Bengel) ; éAcyiorwr 
refers, therefore, not to the Pharisaic distinctions between great and small 
commandments,? but to what Jesus Himself had just designated as iéra and 
kepaia, those precepts which in reality are the least important. They stand, 
however, in accordance with the rijpwore of the law, in essential organic 
connection with the ideal contents of the whole, and can therefore be so 
little regarded as having no authority, that rather he who does this (Atcy), 
and teaches others to act in this manner (d:d4&7), will obtain only one of the 
lowest places (one of the lowest grades of dignity and happiness) in the 
‘ kingdom of the Messiah. He is not to be excluded (as Augustine, Luther, 
Calvin, Calovius, Wolf, Bengel, and others have misinterpreted the meaning 
of éAdy. KA7O.), because his antinomianism is not a principle, not directed 
against the law as such, but only against individual precepts of the law, 
which in themselves are small, and whose importance as a whole he does not 
recognize.* — Note the correlation of rav éAayiotwy. . . éAdyiotog.. . . méyac. 
Ver. 20. Tap] Unnecessary difficulties have been raised on account of this 
connection (Ritschl and Bleek, who even declare dé to be more appropriate), 
and the obvious sense passed over (de Wette, who, as well as Hilgenfeld, 
refers back to ver. 17). Jesus does not state any ground for recognizing 
why there must be distinctions of rank in the kingdom (Ritschl), which 
must be understood as a matter of course ; but He assigns the reason—and 
how important was that for the vocation of the disciples !—for the roijoy x. 
6.da&y Which He had just uttered, in accordance with its necessary connec- 
tion: ‘For if ye do not unite acting with téaching, then can ye not enter 
into the kingdom, being upon the same stage of righteousness as the scribes 


Greek writers also the simple verb repre- as unnecessary as it is arbitrary. Ké6stlin 


sents the compound that has preceded it; 
comp. on Rom. xv. 4. 

1 Comp. also Ritschl, p. 40. 

2 See especially, Wetstein, p. 295 f. 

3 Ver. 19 stands in so essential a connec_ 
tion with the discourse, that the supposition 
of Olshausen, that Jesus had in view special 
acts of an antinomian tendency on the 
part of some of His disciples, appears just 


and Hilgenfeld find here a very distinct dis- 
approval of the Apostle Paul and of the 
Paulinites, who break free from the law ; 
nay, Paul, thinks K6stlin, was actually 
named by Jewish Christians the smallest 
(Eph. iii. 8), as he so names himself (1 Cor. 
xy. 9). A purely imaginary combination. 
Comp. 1 Cor. iii. 15. 


CHAP. Y., 21. 125 
and Pharisees” (xxiii. 2 f., 14). —repicc. rieiov is to be rendered : shall 
have been more abundant than.’ — 7 dixacoctvy budv] your moral righteousness, 
as in vy. 6, 10, not the justitia jidet (Calovius), although the truly moral 
life rests upon the latter. —rov ypaypar. x. dapic.| well-known comparatio 
compendiaria for tie dixaoobyyg tov, K.7.A.* It is understood, besides, as a 
matter of course, that Jesus here has in view the false righteousness of the 
Pharisees in general, so that nobler manifestations, like Gamaliel, Nico- 
demus, and others, do not determine His general judgment. 

Ver. 21. There now follow on to the end of the chapter six—neither five 
(Hilgenfeld) nor seven (Késtlin)—antithetic examples of the fulfilling of the 
law of Jesus, not merely derived from the Decalogue, or from its second 
table (Keim), but from the Pentateuch generally ; not, however, of an anti- 
nomian kind, consequently not in opposition to the divine law itself (Chrys- 
ostom antl many Fathers, Maldonatus, Neander, Bleek, Socinians and 
Arminians), but opposed, indeed, to all the manifold limitations and one- 
sided apprehensions and applications of the same, as it was represented and 
followed out in life by the common traditional Judaism, and specially by 
the Pharisees, without insight into the deeper unity and the purely moral 
absolute meaning.* That use of the law produced a false legalism, without 
sincerity and virtue, in opposition to which Jesus wishes to develop and 
assert the true and full righteous morality out of the divine law. — jKotcare | 
from the law which is read before you,* and from the instruction which you 
have received regarding its exposition. — roic apyaioe] may grammatically 
be taken not only as a dative (Chrysostom, Theophylact, Euth. Zigabenus, 
Luther, Erasmus, Grotius, Wetstein, Bengel, and many others; also 
Tholuck, Neander, de Wette, Ritschl, Bleek, Weizsiicker), but also as an 
ablative: by the ancients ;° so Beza, Piscator, Schoettgen, Raphel, and many ; 
also Paulus, Kuinoel, Fritzsche, Olshausen, Baumgarten, Ewald, Lechler, 
Keim. On the jirst rendering, which most obviously suggests itself,® the 
ancients are the Jewish generations of earlier times (before Christ), to which 
Moses and his followers (xxiii. 2 f.), the scribes, spoke (de Wette, Ritschl), 
not simply the Israelites in the time of Moses, to whom the latter spoke 
(Neander, Bleek); on the latter view it is Moses (who would not have to be 
excluded, as Keim maintains), and his ancient expositors learned in the Seript- 
ure ; for there follow their sayings, which are partly without, partly accom- 


1 These men thought and appeared to 
make themselves prominent by abundant 
acts of dtcavocvvyn, whilst they ‘‘ ceremonia- 
lem et forensem morali missa tutati sunt,” 
““observed ceremonial and external, but 
neglected moral righteousness”? (Bengel). 
An abounding in righteousness on the part 
of His disciples in a higher degree and meas- 
ure of morality, which zAciov, however, in 
accordance with the actual relation of the 
thing compared, contains in itself an essen- 
tially quite different kind of Suxatocvvn, is 
required by Christ on the ground of faith 
in Him. That external righteousness, 


whilst the heart is impure, ‘‘ does not be- 
long to heaven, but to hell’? (Luther). 
Comp. mepiocevery vrép Twa, 1 Macc. iii. 30. 

2 Kiihner, IT. p. 847. 

3 Comp. also Hofmann, Schriftbew. I. p. 
599 f.; Harless, @. Hhescheidungs/rage, 1861, 
p.7f.; Weiss, Keim. 

4 John xii. 34; Rom. ii. 18; Gal. iv. 21; 
Acts xv. 21. 

5See Kiihner, Ii. 1, p. 368 f. ; Winer, p. 206 
[E. T. 277]. 

8 Rom. ix. 12, 26; Gal. iii. 16; Rev. vi. 11, 
ix. 4. 


126 THE GOSPEL OF MATTHEW. 

panied with, additions proceeding from the scribes. The decision between 
these two views is given not merely by the constant usage of the N. T., 
which joins 6/407 with the dative, but also by the antithesis éya dé Aéyw ipniv, 
in which éyé corresponds to the logical subject of éppéA, and spin to toi¢ 
apyaioe ; the latter consequently cannot itself be the subject. Luther 
therefore rightly renders : that it is said to them of old time.’ Pointless 
objections are made by Keim, II. p. 248, who even finds in this view some- 
thing opposed to the sense ; because the people of the present day have not 
vet heard of that which was enjoined on them of old time, but of what has 
been enjoined upon themselves. On the other hand, it is to be recollected 
that it was precisely a peculiarity of the Jewish method of instruction, and 
still is so, to refer the present generation to those of old time, to inculcate 
upon the former the rapadocre which had been common in ancient times, 
and had been already given to their forefathers. Thus the people of the 
present time have certainly heard in the synagogues what was said to them 
of old time.* Kadéac eipyta toic madaiow, ott, K.T.A., ‘* well has it been said to 
the ancients, that,” etc. — ob dovetoecc] Ex. xx. 12. The prohibition refers 
to the act, though not by itself, but as the effect of anger, of hostility, and 
so on ; for there is also a putting to death which is permitted, nay, even 
commanded. The Pharisaic explanation and application of the legal saying 
was confined to the literal prohibition of the act; the fulfiller of the law 
lays open the whole disposition that deserves punishment, which, as the 
ethical condition of the act, was aimed at by the prohibition of the latter. 
The following words contain a traditional addition, although one not alien 
to the law, by the scribes, who interpreted that prohibition externally.— 
Kpiowc, according to ver. 22, opposed to the Sanhedrin, is the local court, 
found, according to Deut. xvi. 18, in every city of Palestine, to which it 
belonged to take cognizance of and to punish even murder (execution by the 
sword).* According to the Rabbins, it consisted of twenty-three members ; 
according to Josephus, of seven.‘ To the higher court of justice, the San- 
hedrin, ver. 22, it belonged to take cognizance also of crimes punishable by 
stoning. 

Ver. 22. I, on the other hand, as the fulfiller of the law, already declare 
unrighteous anger to be as worthy of punishment as the act of murder was 
declared to be to those of old time ; as still more worthy of punishment, 
however, the expression of such anger in injurious language, to which I, in 
the worst cases, even assign the punishment of hell. Observe (1) that Jesus 
does not at all enter into the question of murder itself, by which He makes 
it to be felt that it was something unheard of amongst those who believed 
on Him ; (2) that for the same reason He does not mention any outbursts of 


1 Instead of eppé3y, Lachmannand Tisch- N.T. See in general, Lobeck, ad Phryn. 


endorf have, after B D E K V, the form _p. 447. Comp. on Rom. ix. 12; Gall. iii. 16. 
éppyntn. Both forms are found in Plato (see 2Comp., moreover, Diodorus Siculus 
Heindorf, ad Gorg. p 46),to whom, how- xii. 20. 


ever, Schneider, ad Pol. V. p. 450 A, every- 
where assigns the latter as the proper one. 
The first is the more common in the later 
Greek, and therefore to be preferred in the 


32 Chron. xix. 5; Josephus, An/ét. iv. 
8. 14. 

4See generally, Tholuck, Keil, Arch. I. 
250 ff. 


CHAP. V., 22. 127 
anger in acts, such as ill-usage and the like ; (3) that the abusive words, 
which are quoted by way of example, represent different degrees of out- 
bursts of anger in speech, in accordance with the malignity of the disposi- 
tion from which they proceed ; and (4) that kpiov, ovvédpiov, yéevva, illus- 
trate different degrees of greater culpability before God (for kpiow and 
ovvédpiov are also analogical representations of divine, although temporal, 
penal judgment), down to the everlasting damnation ; so that (5) as the 
general moral idea in the concrete discourse, whose plastic ascent in details 
is not to be pressed, the highest and holiest severity appears in the point of 
unlovingness (comp. 1 John iii. 15), and therein lies the ideal consummation 
of the law, ov dovetcerc, not only in itself, but also in the antithesis of its 
traditional threat, d¢ 0’ av goveton, etc. —6 dopy:fou. | has the emphasis of oppo- 
sition to goveterv. —TO adei¢@| does not go beyond the popular conception 
(a member of the nation, comp. ver. 47), out of which grew at a later time 
the representation and designation of Christian brotherly fellowship. The 
conception of the zAyciov from the point of view of humanity, Luke x. 29, 
is not contained in the adeAddc. —If cix# were genuine (but see critical 
remarks), then this idea would be contained in it, that Jesus does not mean 
simply being angry, but the being angry without a reason (Rom. xiii. 4 ; 
Col. ii. 18), the anger of mere passionateness, without moral justification.» 
There is, moreover, a holy anger, which has its basis in what is right, and in 
its relation to the unholy world.* But never ought it to be unloving and 
hostile anger ; and that swch an anger is here meant is shown by the con- 
text, therefore eix7 would not even be an appropriate closer definition. — jaa] 
as Jerome and Hesychius already correctly interpret it, is the Chaldee 8p"), 
vacuus, that is, empty head !—At that time a very common word of oppro- 
brium.* That it is, so faras regards its idea, of the same nature with pwpé 
that follows, speaks rather in favor of than against this common interpre- 
tation.* Ewald thinks of the Aramaic 8p), and interprets it: rascal. — 
Lope | neby fool, but in the moral sense,® as the virtuous man was rightly re- 
garded as wise ° and the wicked as foolish ; therefore equivalent to *‘ wicked,” 
and thus a stronger word of opprobrium, one affecting the moral character, 
than paxa ; see Wetstein. — eic¢ tHv yéevvar] literally : into hell,” which is to 
be regarded as a pregnant expression from the idea of being cast down into 


1 eixy Would stand as equivalent to adoyt- 


o7ws, ‘unreasonably’? (Polyb. i. 52. 2), 
mapadocyws, ‘“‘unexpectedly” (Polyb. i. 74. 


14), aoxorws, “heedlessly” (Polyb. iv. 14. 6). 

2 Comp. on Eph. iv. 26. 

3 Buxtorf, Lex. talm. p. 2254; Lightfoot, 
Hor. p. 264; Wetstein in loc. 

4 Comp. xevos (Jas. ii. 20; Soph. Ant. 709), 
kevodbpwv (Aesch. Prom. 761), 
(Sibyll. iii. p. 418). 

5 Hupfeld on Ps. xiv. 1. 

® Comp. Xen. Mem. iii. 9. 4. 

7 The attributive genitive tod mupds (xiii. 
42; 2 Thess. i, 8), as an expression of the spe- 
cific nature, is to be explained from the 


KevOKpa.vos 


well-known popular representation of hell 
(comp. iii. 11, xviii. 8 f., xxv. 41, and else- 
where). The explanation of Kuinoel, who 
follows the older interpreters, “is dignus 
est,qui in valle Hinnomi views comburatur,” 
“that one is worthy to be burned alive in 
the valley of Hinnom,” is, irrespective of 
the illegality of burning alive, opposed to 
the constant usage of yéevva as signifying 
hell, which usage also forbids us to think of 
the burning of the body in the valley of 
Hinnom (Michaelis) after execution, or at 
least of a casting forth of the latter into 
this detested place (B. Crusius, comp. 
Tholuck). 


128 THE GOSPEL OF MATTHEW. 

hell.’ Plastic representation with the increasing liveliness of the discourse, 
instead of the more abstract dative. No example elsewhere. yéevva, prop- 
erly D3 83, or DIA-}2 4 (037, name of a man otherwise unknown ; other 
interpretations, as ‘‘ valley of howling,” are arbitrary), a valley to the south of 
the capital, where the idolatrous Israelites had formerly sacrificed their chil- 
dren to Moloch.? The name of this hated locality was transferred to the 
subterranean abode of the damned.* So always in the N. T., where, how- 
ever, it is found only in the Synoptics and James. 

Ver. 23 f. ’Edv . . . mpoodépyc] If thou, then, art about to present thy sac- 
rifice (dapov, Vill. 4, xv. 5, xxiii. 18, also in the LXX., Apocrypha, and 
Greek writers) ; consequently, art already occupied with the preparation of 
the same in the temple.‘ This explanation is required by the words tuxpoo- 
ev tov Ouc. (ad aram), ver. 24.— éxi 76 Ovoracr.| to the altar, in order that 
the priests may offer it upon the same. — xaxei pryobijc, «.7.2.]° The injured 
part is the adeAddc ; differently in Mark xi. 25, where forgiveness is required. 
— éurpoo8. tov Ovovacr.| A closer definition added to éxei. — zparov] in the first 
place (vi. 33), before everything else, what thou now hast to do. Compare 
rére afterwards. Itis to be connected with iraye (Luther, Erasmus, Castalio, 
Bengel, and many others ; also Gersdorf, p. 107 ; de Wette, Ewald, Arnoldi, 
Bleek). The connection with diaiiay. (Beza, Calvin, Er. Schmidt, and 
many others ; also Kuinoel, Fritzsche, Tholuck, and others) overlooks the 
essential moment which is contained in the connection precisely by the 
braye, the unavoidable, surprising, nay, repellent removal of oneself from 
the temple. For that izaye is not here merely an appeal, age, is shown by 
the context through the words age¢ éxei, etc. In xviil. 15, xix. 21, also, it 
means abi. — diarAaynhr| be reconciled, deal so that a reconciliation may begin 
with him who has been injured by thee. Comp. 1 Sam. xxix. 4, and on the 
passage 1 Cor. vii. 11. In this way the act of sacrifice receives the moral 
foundation of a disposition pleasing to God, by which it is no mere exter- 
nal work, but is at the same time Aoyi«7 Aatpeia, Rom. xii. 1.7 Moreover, the 
distinction asserted by Tittmann to exist between diad2docew and Kkarahidocerr, 
that the former denotes the removal of mutual hostility, the latter that of 
one-sided enmity (Synon. p. 102), is decidedly erroneous. ® 

Ver. 25 f. The precept, to be reconciled with the injured person in order 


1 Winer, p. 200 [E. T. 267]; Buttmann, p. 
148 (E. T. 170]. 

22 Kings xxiii. 10; Jer. vii. 32, xix. 2; 
Ritter, Hrdk. XVI. 1, p. 872; Robinson, Pal. 
II. p. 38. 

3 Lightfoot, Hor. ; Wolf on the passage ; 
Eisenmenger, Lntdecktes Judenthum, Il. p. 
$23 ff. 

4 The severance of the Jewish believers 
from the temple service was only to begin 
at a later time, John iy. 21. The Catholic 
exegesis knows, indeed, how to find here 
the permanent sacrifice of the Eucharist, 
regarding which Christ is said in the pas- 
sage before us to have given a law whichis 


for ever valid, Déllinger, Christenthum und 
Kirche, p. 250 f., ed. 2. 

5 ‘inter rem sacram magis subit recorda- 
tio offensarum, quam in strepitu negotio- 
rum,’ ‘‘ The recollection of offences comes 
up in the midst of sacred things rather than 
in the noise of business,’’ Bengel. 

® Comp. Vii. 5, xiii. 30, xxiii. 26. 

7 Flacius well remarks, s.v. munus : ** Vult 
primam haberi rationem moralium, secun- 
dum ceremonialium,” ‘‘ He wishes the rea- 
son of moral things to be esteemed first, of 
ceremonial things second.”’ 

8 Fritzsche, ad Rom. I. p. 276 ff. 


CHAP. V., 27. 29 


not to be cast into hell by God the judge, is made clear by the prudential 
doctrine of satisfying a creditor in order not to become liable to imprison- 
ment. To abide merely by the prudential doctrine itself which the words 
convey,’ is opposed to the context (vv. 21-24) ; to take the @vAakj, however, 
as the representation of purgatory (many Catholics, not Schegg), or of Sheol 
(not Gehenna) (Olshausen), is forbidden by the idea of the judgment, which 
also excludes the vague and indefinite ‘‘ transference of that which is de- 
structive for the external life to that which is destructive in a higher sense” 
(de Wette). Luke xii. 58 has the precept in quite a different connection ; 
but this does not justify us in not regarding it in the present passage as be- 
longing to it (Pott, Kuinoel, Neander, Bleek, Holtzmann, Weiss, and 
others), since it may be given here and there as a popular symbolical prov- 
erb ; while precisely here it is most clearly and simply appropriate to the 
connection. —ebvoév] be well disposed—that is, inclined to satisfy him by 
making payment or composition. —7r6 avriWixw cov] The opponent (in a law- 
suit) is to be conceived of as a creditor (ver. 26). The injured brother is in- 
tended ; comp. ver. 23. Explanations of the Fathers referring it to the devil 
(Clement of Alexandria), to God (Augustine), to the conscience (Euth. Ziga- 
benus), see in Tholuck. — rayi| without delay, without putting off, xxviii. 7 
f. ; John xi. 29; Rev. ii. 16.? — éw¢ érov] If by ray it was intimated that 
the compliance should deyin without delay, so it is now stated that it shall 
remain till the extreme termination : even until thou art with him on the 
road to the judge—even then still shalt thou yield compliance. Not of itself 
(in answer to Tittmann, Synon. p. 167), but, in virtue of the context, is éw¢ 
the inclusive ‘‘ until,” as according to the context it may also be exclusive 
(comp. on the passage, i. 25).—The servant of justice (ixnpétnc) belongs to 
the representative of the legal act ; and who is meant thereby, is evident 
from xiii. 41 f. — BAnOjon| The future, which might be dependent on pjrore,* 
taken independently, gives the appropriate emphasis to the tragic closing 
act.—In ver. 26 is by no means contained the jinality of the condition of 
punishment, but its non-finality ; since the arodidévar, that is, the removal 
of the guilt of sin, is for him who is in this ¢vAacg an impossibility, xviii. 
34, xxv. 41, 46, etc. éw¢ states, then, a terminus which is never reached. 
Comp. xviii. 34.—The quadrans is As in copper. or 2 Aerra, $ of a farthing 
(Mark xii. 42) ; see on the Roman coins in circulation amongst the Jews, 
Cavedoni, bibl. Numismat. I. p. 78 ff. 

Ver. 27 f. From vv. 28-30 it appears that the tradition of the Pharisees 
limited the prohibition in Ex. xx. 14 to adultery proper, and left out of 
consideration adulterous desires. — BAéruv] he who looks upon a woman, 
opposed to the actual poryeberv. — yvvaixa] woman in general, so that it may 
be a married (Erasmus, Grotius, Tholuck, de Wette, Bleek) or an unmarried 
one ; for the $Aérwv is conceived of as a married man, as is clear from the 
signification of ov yoryetoerc, Which means adultery. — pic 76 éxifuujoa avrg | 


1 Theophylact, Vatablus, and others, in- 3 Winer, p. 468 f. [E. T. 629] ; Buttmann, 
cluding Paulus, neut. Gr. p. 201 [E. T. 233] ; see on the pas- 
2**Tarda est superbia cordis ad depre- sage, Col. ii. 8. 
candum et satisfaciendum,”’ Bengel. 


130 THE GOSPEL OF MATTHEW. 

not ita ut, etc., not even in accordance with (Weiss), but, agreeably to the 
constant usage of zpé¢ with the infinitive, to denote the ¢elic reference (vi. 1, 
xxvi. 12, and elsewhere) : in order to desire her. ‘The Baérew, which termi- 
nates in lustful desire, which is kindled and felt to be strengthened by 
gazing on, is designated.*_ He who looks upon a woman with such a feel- 
ing has already (jam ¢o ipso, Bengel), in virtue of the adulterous desire with 
which he does so, committed adultery with her in his heart, which is the 
seat of fecling and desire. Thus he is, as regards his moral constitution, 
although without the external act, already an adulterer. Similar proverbs 
from the Rabbinical writers in Lightfoot and Schoettgen ; from the Greek 
and Roman writers in Pricaeus. On ypo:yeterr with the accusative, comp. 
Plato, Rep. p. 360 B. —ériOuueiv] with the accusative, is rare and late.* Even 
if aitf#v were spurious, it could not be explained with Fritzsche : ‘ ut adsit 
mutua cupiditas,” ‘that desire may be mutual.” 

Ver. 29.° Unconditional self-denial, however, is required in order not to 
stumble against the prohibition of adultery in its complete meaning, and 
thereby to fall into hell. Better for thee that thou decidedly deprive thy- 
self of that which is so dear and indispensable to thee for the temporal life, 
and the sacrificing of which will be still so painful to thee, than that thou, 
seduced thereby, andsoon. In the typical expression of this thought (comp. 
on Col. iii. 5) the eye and hand are named, because it is precisely these that 
are the media of lust ; and the right members, because to these the popular 
idea gave the superiority over the left.‘ The non-typical but literal in- 
terpretation ° is not in keeping with the spirit of the moral strictness of 
Jesus ; and to help it out by supplying a limitation (perhaps in the extreme 
case, to which, however, it cannot come ; comp. Tholuck) is arbitrary. The 
view, however, which is, indeed, also the proper one, but hyperbolical, ac- 
cording to which the plucking out is said to represent only the restraining 
or limiting the use, does not satisfy the strength of the expression. So 
Olshausen, comp. already Grotius. Only the typical view, which is also 
placed beyond doubt by the mention of the ene eye, satisfies the words and 
spirit of Jesus. Yet, having regard to the plastic nature of the figures, it. 
is not the thought ‘‘as is done to criminals” (Keim), but merely that of 
thoroughgoing, unsparing self-discipline.® — cxavdariter] a typical designation, 
borrowed from a trap (cxavdd/n and cKkavdadeOpov, the trap-spring), of the idea 
of seducing to unbelief, heresy, sin, etc. Here it isthe latteridea. The word 
is not found in Greek writers, but in the LXX. and Apocrypha, and very 


1‘O yap omovddgwv opav Tas evpdphous opers, 
G@vUTOs MaALoTA THY KamLVOV avamTeL TOV Tatous, 
““He who is eager to gaze on beautiful 
faces does himself kindle up the furnace of 
passion,’’ Chrysostom. Comp. Augustine: 
“qui hoc fine et hoc animo attenderit, ut eam 
concupiscat, quod jam non est titillari de- 
lectatione carnis, sed plene consentire libi- 
dini,” ‘‘ Who should apply himself, with this 
end and purpose in view, viz., to long after 
her, which in fact is not merely to be pleased 
by fleshly delight, but fully to consent to 


WmSte: 

2 Comp. Ex. xx. 17; Deut. v. 20; Judith 
Xvi. 22; see Winer, p. 192 [E. T. 255]. 

3 Comp. xviii. 8 f.; Mark ix. 43 ff. Holtz- 
mann assigns the original form to Mark. 
On the other hand, see Weiss. 

4 Bx. xxix. 20; 1 Sam. xi. 2; Zech. xi. 17; 
Aristotle, de animal. incessu, iv. 

6 Pricaeus, Fritzsche, likewise Ch. F. 
Fritzsche in his Nov. Opusc. p. 347 f., Arnol- 
di. ‘ 

6 Gal. v. 24, vi. 14 ; Rom. viii. 13. 


CHAP: V:, al. 131 
frequently in the N. T. Observe the present. What is required is not to 
take place only after the completion of the seduction. — cuuéper yap oor, iva, 
x.T.A.] not even here, as nowhere indeed, does iva stand instead of the injin- 
itive (comp. xviii. 6), but is to be taken as teleological : ‘‘ it is ef importance 
to thee (this plucking out of the eye), in order that one of thy members may be 
destroyed, and not thy whole body be cast into hell.” Thus Fritzsche alone cor- 
rectly ; comp. Kiiuffer. The alleged forced nature of this explanation is a 
deception arising from the customary usage of the infinitive in German. — 
kai wy bAov . . . yéevvav] namely, at the closely impending establishment of 
the kingdom ; comp. x. 28. Ver. 30 is the same thought, solemnly repeated, 
although not quite in the same words (see the critical remarks).* 

Ver. 31 f.? In Deut. xxiv. 1 there is stated as a reason for the dismissal 
which is to be carried out, 133 DN, something hateful, loathsome.* This 
was explained by the strict Rabbi Sammai and his adherents as referring to 
adultery and other unchaste behavior ; but the gentle Rabbi Hil/el and his 
school as referring to everything in general that displeased the husband. 
Rabbi Abika went still further, who allowed dismissal if the husband found 
amore beautiful woman ; see Wetstein. To these and other * ill-considered 
principles—for Hillel’s doctrine had become the prevalent one—Christ op- 
poses Himself, and draws out from the original and inmost nature of 
marriage (comp. xix. 4 ff.) a firm rule, preserving the sanctity of the idea, 
and admitting only that as a ground of separation by which the nature of 
marriage and its obligations is, as a matter of fact, directly and immediately 
destroyed.* — arodtion] not repudiare constituerit (Fritzsche after Grotius), 
but z7ll have dismissed. In this is implied the oral declaration of dismissal, the 
accomplishment of which as a fact is to take place by means of a letter of 
divorce. The command to give the letter of divorce, moreover, the use of 
which was already in existence before the law, is only indirectly implied in 
Deut. xxiv. 1 ; comp. on xix. 7. The Greek expression for the dismissal of 
the woman is droréurew.? On the wanton practice of the Greeks in this 
matter, see Hermann, Privatalterth. § 30. — arxoordowwv| departure, that is, 
by means of a $:SAiov azooraciov.® In Demosthenes, 790. 2, 940. 15, itis the 
desertion of his master, contrary to duty, by a manumitted slave.® The 


troducing an objection to vy. 29, 30. 

3See Ewald, Alterthum. p. 272; Keil, 
Archiol. Il. p. 74 f., Gesenius, Zhes. II. p. 
1068. 

4 Josephus, Antt. iv. 8. 238; Vita, 76. 


1*Sane multos wniws membri neglecta 
mortificatio perdit,” ‘“‘ Truly, mortification 
of one member being neglected destroys 
many (persons),’’ Bengel. 

2 The assertion that, if Jesus had deliv- 


ered this declaration here, the discussion re- 
g°rding divorce in ch. xix. could not have 
taken place (K6stlin, p. 47 ; Holtzmann, p. 
76 f.), has no foundation, especially as in 
xix. 8, Mark x. 2, the discussion is called 
forth by the Pharisees; comp. Weiss. Ols- 
hausen and Bleek also find in ch. xix. the 
historical position for the declaration, 
which Hilgenfeld regards as a non-original 
appendix to what precedes; which is also 
substantially the judgment of Ritschl, who 
regards the metabatic S€ in ver. 31 as in- 


Lightfoot, p. 278 ff.; Ewald, Jahrb. X. p. 56 
fie 

5 See Othonis, Lew. Rabb. p. 504. 

® Comp. Harless, Hhescheidungsfrage, p. 
ay ahi 

7 Bekker, Anecd. p. 421; Bremi, ad Dem- 
adv. Onetor. iv. p. 92. 

8 Deut. xxiv. 1; Matt. xix. 7; Mark x. 4; 
Sar iii. S: 

®? Hermann, Z.c. § 57. 17.—The formula of 
the letter of divorce, see in Alphes. in Git- 
tin. f. 600; in Lightfoot, p. 277. 


132 THE GOSPEL OF MATTHEW. 
object of the same was to prove that the marriage had been legally dissolved, 
and that it was competent to enter into a second marriage with another man 
(Ewald, /.c.). Observe, moreover, how the saying of the scribes, which has 
been quoted, is a mutilation of the legal precept, which had become tra- 
ditional in the service of their lax principles, as if it, beside the arbitrary act 
of the man, were merely a question of the formality of the letter of divorce. 
Ver. 32. Ilapextocg Adyov ropv.] that is, except (see on 2 Cor. xi. 28) if an 
act of whoredom, committed by the woman during marriage,’ is the motive? 
(and see on Acts x. 29). In spite of the point of controversy which lies at 
the foundation, Paulus and Gratz are of opinion—most recently especially, 
Déllinger *—that by ropveia, which does not mean adultery,* whoredom before 
marriage is meant, so that the man, instead of a virgin, receives one who is 
no longer so.° The correct view is already to be found in Tertullian, and in 
the whole old exegetical tradition, where, however, on the Catholic side, the 
permission was limited only to separation a toro et mensa. On the subject, 
comp. the explanation which was specially called forth on a later occasion, 
xix. 3 ff. But in Mark x. 11, Luke xvi. 18 (also 1 Cor. vii. 10 f.), this excep- 
tion is not expressed, not as if Jesus had at the beginning made greater con- 
cessions to the pre-Christian Jewish marriages, and only at a later time com- 
pletely denied the dissolubility of marriage,* nor even as if that rapexroc, 
x.7.4., were a later modification, and not originally spoken by Christ (Bleek, 
Wittichen, Weiss, Holtzmann, Scbenkel, and others), but Mark and Luke 
regard this exception by itself, understanding it as a matter of course ; and 
rightly so,7 since adultery eo ipso destroys the essence of all marriage obliga- 


1 Consequently adultery, John viii. 41; 
Amos Vii. 17; Hos. iii. 3; Sir. xxvi. 9, xiv. 
12. 

2 Xédyos, comp. Thue. i. 102, iii. 6, Ixi. 4. 

3 Christenthum und Kirche, p. 392 ff., 460 
ff., ed. 2 (comp. Baeumlein in the Stud. und 
Krit. 1857, p. 336). 

4Tt meansin general every kind of whore- 
dom (Dem. 403. 26, 433. 25, 612. 5). Where it 
specially refers to adultery (“orxeta) this is 
clear from the context, as here and xix. 9. 
Thus, for example, it means also the idola- 
try of the people of God, because that is 
adultery against Jehovah, wopveca, as in 
Hos. i. 2; Ezek. xvi. 15, xxiii. 43. 

5 How can one seriously suppose that Je- 
sus could have laid down so slippery an 
exception! indelicate, uncertain, unwise, a 
welcome opening to all kinds of severity and 
chicanery, especially considering the jeal- 
ousy of the Jews. And the exception 
would have to hold good also in the case of 
marriages with widows ! 

° Hug, de conjugii christ. vinculo indissolub. 
1816, who therefore declares, in xiv. 9, “y 
émt wopveca to be spurious. 

7 But by the circumstance that Jesus here 
expressly quotes asan exception this actual 
ground of separation, which was under- 


stood as a matter of course, He excludes 
every other (comp. especially Calovius); and 
it is incorrect to say that, while He grants 
one actual ground of separation, He still 
allows several others (Grotius, de Wette, 
Bleek, and others; comp. also Werner in 
dad. Stud. u. Krit. 1858, p. 702 ff.), which is 
quite opposed to the point of view of moral 
strictness, from which He excepts only that 
case in which the actual dissolution of the 
marriage in its innermost nature is directly 
given.—That Christ bases His answer on 
the question of divorce purely upon the 
nature of the divine ordinance of marriage 
as it was already given at the creation (una 
caro, ix. 5), not upon its object, is of decisive 
importance for the legislation in question, * 
where we have also to observe that the 
altered form of divorce (the judicial) can 
make no change in the principles laid down 
by Jesus. Otherwise the legislation relat- 
ing to marriage is driven on and on, by way 
of supposed consistency, to the laxity of 
the Prussian law and that of other lands 
(comp. the concessions of Bleek). More- 
over, as regards malicious desertion, the 
declarations of Christ admit of application 
only so far as that desertion guoad formam, 
consequently according to its essential na- 


CHAP. V., 35-36. 133 
tions.’ But as the exception which Jesus here makes cannot become devoid 
of meaning by means of Lev. xx. 10 (in answer to Schegg, see John viii. 3 
ff.), so also it is not to be annulled on critical grounds, which in view of 
the witnesses is impossible (in answer to Keim here and on xix. 9). The 
second half of the verse also, kai dc, «.7.2., cannot be condemned with Keim 
on the authority of D and Codd. in Augustine. — roei aitiv poryacbac),? 
although, according to that principle, she is still the wife of the first hus- 
band ; therefore the man also, if he marries again, woryarac (xix. 9). — kai] 
not causal, but and, and on the other side. — povyata:] because he has inter- 
course with a person who, according to the divine law, is the wife of another. 
That by aroAcAvuévyy, a woman who is dismissed illegally, consequently not 
on account of adultery, is intended, was understood as a matter of course, 
according to the first half of the verse. 

Ver. 33. Ilda] as in iv. 7. —ov« érvopxfoerc] Doctrinal precept, according 
to Ex. xx. 7; Lev. xix. 12. It is not to the eighth commandment that Jesus 
refers (Keim, following an artificially formed scheme), but the second com- 
mandment. forms the fundamental prohibition of perjury. —The Pharisaic 
tradition made arbitrary distinctions between oaths that were binding (by 
Jehovah) and those that were not binding.’ The second half of the pre- 
cept quoted (formulated after Num. xxx. 3; Deut. xxxili. 22) was so 
weakened by them, that special emphasis was laid upon the words 76 kupiv, 
and other oaths were deprived of their obligatory powers. 

Vv. 34-36. M7 dudcar bAwc] to swear not at all (the adverb placed emphat- 
ically at the end, compare ii. 10), dependent upon Aéya iyiv,* interdicts all 
kinds of swearing in general ;° not merely that of common life, which is at 


principles regarding this matter. 

4 Comp. Plat. Phaed. p.59 E, Menex.240 A), 
in which the command is implied (Jacobs, 
ad) Anthol. X. p. 200; Kiihner, ad Anabd. vy. 


ture, is fully equivalent to adultery, which, 
however, must always be a question in each 
individual case. It cannot be shown from 
1 Cor. ix. 15 that malicious desertion was 


regarded as a reason for dissolving Chris- 
tian marriage. See on the passage. —Of 
that case of separation, where the man 
commits adultery, Christ does not speak, 
because the law, which does not know of 
any dismissal of the man on the part of the 
woman, presented no occasion to it. But 
the application of the principle in the case 
of adultery on the part of the woman to 
that of the man as a ground of divorce 
gightly follows in accordance with the 
moral spirit of Jesus; comp. Mark x. 12; 
Gal. iii. 28 ; 1 Cor. xi. 11. 

1Comp. Weiss in d. Zeitschr. f. christl. 
Wissensch. 1856, p. 261. 

2** Per alias nuptias, quarum potestatem 
dat divortium,” “through other marriage 
of which divorce gives the power,’’ Ben- 
gel. 

3 Comp. also Philo, de Spec. Legg. p. 770 
A. See Lightfoot, p. 280; Eisenmenger, II. 
p. 490; Wetstein on ver. 36; Michaelis, 
Mos. Recht, VY. p. 141 ff., upon their loose 


7. 84; Wunder, ad Soph. 0. C. 887. 

® Comp. West in the Stud. u. Hrit. 1852, 
p. 221 ff.; Nitzsch, chvistl. Lehre, p. 393 ff.; 
Werner in the Stud. u. Krit. 1858, p. 711 ff.; 
Wuttke, Sittenl. II. § 277; Achelis in the 
Stud. u. Krit. 1867, p. 436 ff. Jerome had 
already remarked, with striking simplicity : 
“evangelica veritas non recipit juramen- 
tum cum omnis sermo fidelis pro jurejuran- 
do sit,” ‘Evangelical truthfulness does 
not pledge itself with an oath, since every 
faithful word is equivalent to an oath.” 
The emphatic odAws forbids, however, the 
limitation only to the forms of the oath 
that are afterwards mentioned (Althaus in d. 
Luther. Zeitschyv. 1868, p. 504, and already 
Theophylact, 1), so that the oath by the 
name of God would remain unaffected ; in 
like manner, the restriction of the prohibi- 
tion to promissory oaths (Ficker in the same 
Zeitschr. 1870, p. 683 ff., and already 
Grotius). 


134 THE GOSPEL OF MATTHEW. 


variance with reverence for God (Luther, Calvin, Calovius, Bengel, Fritzsche, 
Ewald, Tholuck, Harless, Hilgenfeld, Keim, and others), nor even merely 
oaths regarded ‘‘ex Judaeorum sensu.” * The simple prohibition,—given, 
however, to the disciples, and for the life of fellowship of true believers, 
—and in so far not less ideal than the requirements that have preceded, 
appears from the words themselves (comp. Jas. v. 12), and also from 
ver. 37. Christianity as it should be according to the will of Christ, should 
know no oath at all.2) To the consciousness of the Christian, God should 
always be so vividly present, that, to Him and others in the Christian com- 
munity, His yea and nay are, in point of reliability, equivalent to an oath, 
His yea and nay are oath enough. Comp. on éAwe, prorsus.* Accordingly, 
it is only in the incomplete temporal condition of Christianity, as well as in 
the relation to the world in which it is placed, and to the existing relations 
of the department of public law, to which it conforms itself, that the oath 
has its necessary, indeed (comp. Heb. vi. 16), but conditional and tempo- 
rary existence. Christ Himself has sworn (xxvi. 63 f.) ; Paul has frequently 
sworn (Rom. i. 9; 2 Cor. i. 23, xi. 3 f.; Gal. il. 20 ; Phil. i. 8) ; nay, God 
swears to His own people (Gen. xxii. 16, xxvi. 3; Num. xiv. 23 ; Isa. xlv. 
23; Luke i. 73; Acts vii. 17 ; Heb. vi. 13). Therefore Anabaptists and 
Quakers are wrong in rejecting an oath without any exception, as was already 
done by Justin, Irenaeus, Clement, Origen, Chrysostom, Jerome, and other 
Fathers. The various but altogether arbitrary explanations of those who 
here recognize no absolute prohibition may be seen in Tholuck. The direct 
oath, by God, is not indeed expressly mentioned along with others in what 
follows ; its prohibition, however, is implied, just as a matter of course, 
and entirely, first of all in the general 7) dudcac bAwc, as it isthe reference to 
God which constitutes precisely the fundamental conception and nature of 
the oath, and, as in the doctrine here discussed, ver. 33, the direct oath is 
contained not only in ovk« éxiopx., according to Lev. xix. 12, but also expressly 
in arodécere TH Kvpiw, etc. If Christ, therefore, had intended to forbid 
merely the oaths of common life, He would, instead of the altogether gen- 
eral statement, jz duéca bAwc, have made use of a form of expression exclud- 
ing oaths to be taken in relation to the magistracy (probably by a rapexréc, 
as in ver. 32). It is true, indeed, that in the special prohibitions which 
follow, He mentions only indirect oaths,—consequently not those that are 
valid in a court of justice,—but just because the prohibition of the direct 
oath was already contained in 7 dudc. b2wc, first of all and before all other 
kinds of oaths ; and His object now is simply to set forth that even indirect 
swearing fell under the general prohibition of swearing. And He sets this 
forth in such a way, that in so doing the prohibition of the direct oath forms 
the presupposition of His demonstration, as it could not otherwise be ex- 
pected after 7 oudca bAwc. What a scanty zAjpwore of the law—and one 


1 Thus Matthaei, doctrina Christi de jure- 3 = rayteA@s Hesychius, Xen. Mem. i. 2. 
jur. Hal. 1847. 35 : mpoayopevomer Tots veots OAws hy Stadeyeo- 

27d my Omvve OAws EmiTeiver madtoTa THY dar, ‘‘We charge you not to discourse at 
evocBecav, ‘‘not to swear at all augments all with young men,”’ Oecon. xx. 20. 
especially piety,’ Euth. Zigabenus. 


CHAP; V., d%. 135 


altogether out of keeping with the ideal character of the points which pre- 
ceded—would it have been had Jesus only intended to say : I forbid you 
“* the wanton oaths of the streets, of the markets” (Keim), in all their forms !— 
pnts év TO ovp., k.T.A.] not to swear in general, nor (specially) by heaven, nor 
by earth.\—The kinds of swearing censured by Jesus were very common 
amongst the Jews.?—6pdévoc feov and iroréddiov. . . avtov| (Isa. xvi. 1 3 
Matt. xxiii. 22). —rov wey. Bao.) of Jehovah (Ps. xviii. 2, xev. 4; Job xiii. 
18 ff. : therefore the holy city, iv. 5). — pyre® év rH Kedadj] Not merely the 
Jews,* but also the heathen,°® swore by their head.° — ouview is by the Greek 
writers connected with xara tivoc, or with the accus. (Jas. v. 12). Here, as 
in xxiii. 16 ff., Jer. v. 7, Dan. xii. 7, with év (in harmony with the idea that 
the oath cleaves to the object appealed to, comp. on duodoyeiv év, x. 82), and 
with cic (directing the thought,’ after the Hebrew ’3 Y3W), — rv ob dévacar, 
k.7.2.| for thou art not in a condition to make one single hair (if it is black) 
white or (if it is white) black. There is, of course, no allusion to the dyeing 
of hair. Wolf, Kécher, Kuinoel, and others incorrectly render it : thou 
canst not produce a single white or black hair. On such a signification, what 
means the mention of the color? The meaning of the whole passage is: 
‘Ye shall not swear by all these objects ; for all such oaths are nothing less 
than the oath directly by God Himself, on account of the relation in which 
those objects stand to God.” In the creature by which thou swearest, its 
Creator and Lord is affected. 

Ver. 37. Let your manner of asseveration be affirmation or negation, without 
an oath. The repetition of the vai and oi isintended to make prominent the 
earnest and decisive nature of the assurance.* Similar examples of {1 [0 
and 8? 89 in the Rabbins, in Lightfoot, and Schoettgen, p. 41.° As a 


1See on wy. . . wyTe, Klotz, ad Devar. p. 7 Comp. Plut. Oth. 18. 


709; Kiihner, II. 2, p. 828 f.; Winer, p. 454 
[E. T. 612] ; also Bauemlein, Part. p. 222. 

2 Philo, de Spec. Legg. p.770 A; Lightfoot, 
l.c.; Meuschen, WV. 7. ex Talm. illustr. p. 
58. 

3 If wndée were here the reading (Fritzsche), 
then the meaning would be: not even by thy 
head ; see Hartung, Partik. I. p. 196. But 
this reading is neither critically admissible 
—as it has only &** in its favor—nor exe- 
getically necessary, since the series of ne- 
gations is symmetrically continued with 
pyre ev tT. Keb. o., Which symmetry is not in- 
terrupted by oucons, because the latter does 
not stand before ev ti xed. o. Matthew 
might have written undé (comp. also Borne- 
mann, ad Xen. Anab. iii. 2. 27; Ellendt, Lex. 
Soph. I. p. 128), but he was not obliged to 
do so. 

4 Berachoth, f. ili. 2; Lightfoot, Hor. p. 
281. 

5 Eur. Hel. 835. 

§ Dougtius, Anal. II. p. 7 f.; Wetstein on 
the passage. Comp. the exposition of Virg. 
Aen. ix. 300. 


8 In answer to Beza’s erroneous expla- 
nation, “let your affirmative discourse be 
yea, and your negative, nay,’ and, in an- 
swer to Grotius (comp. also Erasmus), who 
takes the second vai and ov to refer to the 
act which corresponds to the assurance, so 
that the meaning would be: “‘ fidema nobis 
praestari debere in promissis etiam inju- 
ratis,” ‘‘ Faith ought to be kept by usin 
promises even unsworn,”’ see Fritzsche on 
the passage. According to Hilgenfeld, the 
original text is said to have been, in accord- 
ance with the quotations in Justin (Apol. i. 
16, p. 63) and the Clementines (Rom. iii. 55, 
Xix. 2): €oTw S5é Vuwy 70 vai vat, Kai TO Ov ov. 
Comp. Jas. v. 12; 2 Cor. i. 17. Matthew 
would appear again to introduce an assur- 
ance like an oath. Keim also deems the 
form of statement as given by Matthew to 
be less correct. 

® Comp. the vai kat od Tviayopuxor, “the 
Pythagorean yea and nay,” in Ausonius, 
Idyll. 17: “ Siconsertitur, mora nulla inter- 
venit, est, est; Si controversum, dissensio 
subjiciet, non,” ‘‘If there is agreement, no 


136 THE GOSPEL OF MATTHEW. 


matter of course, by this representation other asseverations—made, however, 
without an oath—are not excluded. — ré dé repico. tovr.] whatever is more 
than yeaand nay (roirwv), that is swearing. — éx tov roy pov} Euth. Zigabenus: 
ix tov diaBdaov : auctorem habet diabolum, ‘‘ has the devil for its author.” So 
Chrysostom, Theophylact, Beza, Zwingli, Castalio, Piscator, Wetstein, and 
others ; also Fritzsche, Keim.* Others (Luther, Calovius, Bengel, Rosen- 
miiller, Kuinoel, Paulus, Tholuck, de Wette, Baumgarten-Crusius, Ewald, 
Bleek, and others) take rod rovypov as neuter, so that it would have to be ex- 
plained : is in the category of evil, is sinful.” But how insipid and devoid 
of meaning is the closing thought if this be the meaning ! how energetic if 
6 rovnpéc, xiii, 19, 38, is intended! And by this energetic rejection of the 
oath amongst the ideal people of God, to whom the completed law applies, 
there is no opposition to the Old Testament sacredness of an oath. But if 
under the completed law the mere yea and nay are to have the weight and 
reliability of an oath, then this highest moral standard and ordinance of 
truthfulness would be again taken away and perverted by him who never- 
theless should swear ; while the yea and nay would again be deprived of 
the guarantee of truthfulness, which, like all opposition to the truth, would 
be diabolical (John viii. 44). The oath by God could not be rejected by 
Jesus, in and by itself, as éx tov rovypov, for it certainly rests upon the divine 
law ; but (in answer to Keim) it has, upon the standpoint of the rAjpwarc 
of the law, given way to the yea and nay, therefore its re-establishment 
would only be a desertion of these higher stages, a falling away from 
the moral reZevéryc up to which Christ means to fulfil the law. This could 
not proceed from God, but only from the enemy of His will and kingdom. 
In a similar way, as Theophylact rightly saw, circumcision in the O. T. 
is ordained of God, and is worthy of honor ; but to uphold its validity 
in Christianity to the injury of faith, and of righteousness by faith, is sin- 
ful, devilish ; 2 Cor. xi. 3, 14. So also with sacrifices, festival days, pro- 
hibition of meats, and so on. 

Ver. 38. ’Od0aAuov . . . dddvtoc] supply déce:, which supplement is pre- 
supposed as well known from the saying referred to (see Ex. xxi. 24). In 
the usual formula (comp. also Lev. xxii. 20, xxiv. 20 ; Deut. xix. 21) is ex- 
pressed the jus talionis, the carrying out of which was assigned to the 
magistracy.* Instead of seeking and asserting this right before the magistra- 
cy, the Christian, in the feeling of true brotherly love, free from all desire 
of revenge, is to exercise self-denial, and to exhibit a self-sacrificing spirit 
of concession. Comp. 1 Cor. vi. 7. This principle of Christian morality, 
laid down absolutely as an ideal, by no means excludes, under the deter- 
mining circumstances of sinful life, the duty of seeking one’s legal rights, 
as is clear, moreover, from the history of Christ and His apostles. That 
Jesus, moreover, is speaking against the misuse by the Pharisees of the legal 


delay intervenes, isis és: if there be dispute, 3Comp. XII. Tab. : ‘‘simembrum rupit, ni 
discord will ensue, (it will be) no.” cum eo pacit, talio esto,” “If he has 
1 Comp. John viii. 44; 1 John iii. 8, 12. broken a limb, unless he come to an agree- 


2 Comp. the use of éx rod éudavois, ex Tod ment with that one, let there be retaliation 
evmpetrous, etc., Matthiae, p. 1334. in kind.” 


CHAP. V., 39-41. 137 


standard, as a standard within the sphere of social life, is a groundless sup- 
position of Luther, Beza, Calvin, Calovius, Bengel, B. Crusius, Keim, and 
others, especially as in ver. 40 cpijva follows. But certainly the Pharisees 
may, unlovingly enough, in cases occurring in social life, have claimed those 
rights before the magistracy, and have influenced others also to practise 
similar unloving conduct. Glosses in reference to the payment in money of 
legal talio, see in Lightfoot. 

Vv. 39, 40. T6 xovypo] is neither to be understood of the devil (Chrysos- 
tom, Theophylact), nor, as neuter (Augustine, Luther, Castalio, Calvin, Ewald, 
and others), of injustice; but, in accordance with the antithesis 442’ bori¢ ce 
parifer, etc., and with vv. 40 and 41: homini maligno. —Christ names first 
the right cheek, although the blow most naturally strikes first the left, but 
after the common fashion of naming the left after the right. — xpi6jvac] to go 
to law. Vulgate well renders : in judicio contendere.’ It refers to legal con- 
troversy, not to the extra-judicial beginnings of contention (de Wette ; also 
Beza, Grotius, Kuinoel, and others), by which the distinction between the 
two cases, vv. 89 and 40, is quite overlooked. — yiréva] IND, the shirt-like 
under-garment, tunica ; on the other hand, ipériv] mony, 333, the mantle- 
like over-garment, toga, which also served for a covering by night, and 
might not therefore be retained as a pledge over night ; Ex. xxii. 26 ; Deut. 
xxiv. 18. The iudriov was more valuable and more indispensable than the 
yitév ; that is the’ point which, according to Matthew, Jesus has in view. 
It is different in Luke vi. 29 (according to the order of succession in cover- 
ing the body). — AaBeiv] by the lawsuit, which follows from kpcfjvac 3 whilst 
the pettiness of the object is not opposed to this, seeing that the method of 
illustration is by way of concrete example. 

Ver. 41. ’Ayyapetew, passed over from the Persian® into Greek, Latin 
(angariare, Vulgate,* and into the Rabbinical dialect (811138,* Lightfoot on 
the passage), to force into transport service. The Persian arrangements re- 
specting post messages, instituted by Cyrus, justified the couriers (ayyapov) 
in making requisitions ‘from station to station of men, or cattle, or carriages 
for the carrying on of their journey.® Here it refers to continuing a forced 
journey, comp. Xxvil. 32. — iAvov] One thousand steps, or eight stadia, one- 
fourth of a German mile. <A late word found in Strabo. 


Remarx.—The spirit of the ethics of Jesus, His own example (John xviii. 22 
f.) and that of the apostles (Acts xxiii. 3, xvi. 35, xxvi. 25, xxv. 9 f.), require us 
to recognize, in these manifestly typical representations, vv. 39-41, not pre- 
cepts to be literally followed, but precepts which are certainly to be determined 
according to their idea, This idea, which is that of love, yielding and putting to 
shame in the spirit of self-denial, and overcoming evil with good, is concretely 
represented in those examples, but has, in the relations of external life and its 
individual cases, the measure and the limitation of its moral practice. Comp. 


1Comp. on1 Cor. vi.1; Rom. iii. 4; and 4 Buxtorf, Lex. Rabb. p. 131. 
see Wetstein, Nigelsbach on the Iliad, p. 5 Herodotus, viii. 98; Xenoph. Cyrop. viii. 
305, ed. 3. 6. 17; Josephus, Anté. xii. 2.3. See Doug- 
2 See Gesenius, Thes. I. p. 23, tius, And. II. p. 9 f. 


3 Augustine, ep. 5. 


138 THE GOSPEL OF MATTHEW. 


on ver. 38. Luther appropriately lays emphasis here upon the distinction 
between what the Christian has to do as a Christian, and what as a worldly per- 
son (in so far as he is in a position or an office, and so on), The Lord leaves 
to the state its own jurisdiction, xxii. 21. 


Ver. 42. A precept (in opposition to selfishness) which does not stand 
indeed in essential connection with what precedes, but which is still brought 
into connection with it through the natural connection of the thoughts. 
According to Ewald, who here lays weight* upon the number seven in the 
quotations of the O. T. laws, there must have stood after ver. 41 in the 
original collection of sayings the following words : 7Kotvcate, bre éppyOn’ ov 
KAéperc, aroddcere 68 Td ivdtiov TO TTWXO' eyo d® Aéyo byiv' 76 airodv7s, and so 
on, and then, ver. 40. The command that is wanting was put together 
from Ex. xx. 15 ; Deut. xxiv. 12 f. A very thoughtful conjecture, which is 
followed by Holtzmann ; but unnecessary, for this reason, that the contents 
and order of the sentences, vv. 40-42, attach themselves to one fundament- 
al thought ; and improbable, because not merely an omission, but also a 
transposition, is assumed, and because 76 aitovrts, x.7.2., does not correspond 
to the prohibition of thieving as its fulfilment. — daveic. | That Jesus did not 
think of lending out at interest, appears from Ex. xxii. 24.* 

Ver. 43. Tov rAyoiov cov] In Lev. xix. 18, J) denotes a member of the 
nation, whereby the proselyte also is included with others ; hatred towards 
the heathen, however, is not conceived of by the legislator as an antithesis 
that follows of itself, and therefore we may all the less assume that Jesus 
Himself introduced into the law hatred of one’s enemies, as an abstraction 
from the national exclusiveness, in which the law keeps Judaism towards 
heathenism, as if it commanded this hatred (Weiss, Bleek). The casuistic 
tradition of the Pharisees, however, explained Lev. xix. 18, as the antithet- 
ical r. éypév co. shows, of a friend, and deduced therefrom (perhaps with 
the addition of passages like Deut. xxv. 17-19, comp. Mal. i. 3) the antithe- 
sis (which confessedly was also a principle of the common Hellenism :* kai 
puchoeic Tov éxOpdv cov, by which was meant not the national enemy (Keim), 
but the personal (cov) private enemy, in opposition to the law (Ex. xxiii. 
4f.; Lev. xix. 18) and to the pious spirit of the Old Covenant.* Jesus Him- 
self also may have understood the Pharisaic addition only to refer to pri- 
vate enemies, as is clear from His antithesis, vv. 44 ff. 

Ver. 44. Observe the entire love which is here required : disposition, word, 
act, intercession.® But it is as ayarav (to esteem highly), not as guAciv (amare), 
that we are required to love our enemy.® It rests upon the clearness and 
strength of the moral will to separate between the person of the enemy and 
his hostile disposition towards us, so that the latter does not prevent us 


1 Jahrb. I. p. 132 f. Sam. xxiv. 7, xviii. 5; 2 Kings vi. 22. 

2eve XkvVn O73) Deuta Xve 7.) Sxilin 20) 5 “Primo fere continetur tertium, et se- 
Ewald, Alterthiimer, p. 242 f. [E. T. 181]. cundum quarto,” “The third is almost en- 

3 See Stallbaum, ad Plat. Phil. 110, p. 154; _‘ tirely contained in the first, and the second 
Jacobs, ad Del. epigr. p. 144. in the fourth,” Bengel. 

4 Ps. vii. 5, xxxyv. 13f.; Job xxxi. 29; Prov. 6 Comp. on John xi. 5. 


xxiv. 17, 29, xxv. 21 f.; comp. Gen. xlv. 1; 1 


CHAP. V., 45-47. 139 


from esteeming the former, from blessing it, and applying to it acts of 
kindness and intercession. The Christian receives this moral clearness and 
strength, and the consecration of enthusiasm thereto, in his self-experience 
of the divine love of one’s enemy in Christ.* 

Ver. 45. "Orwe yévyobe viol, x.7.A.] is commonly understood, in keeping 
with the 6rz rdv #Acov, «.7.2., that follows, of the ethical condition of similar- 
ity to God, according to which the child of God also exhibits in himself the 
divine disposition and the divine conduct (Eph. v. 1 f.). But the correct 
interpretation is given by ver. 9, and is supported by yévyjoe (for yiveobar is 
never equivalent to civac). What is meant is, as in ver. 9, the obtaining of 
the coming salvation in the kingdom of the Messiah, which, according to the 
connection, as in ver. 9, is designated as the future sonship of God, because 
the participators in the Messanic blessedness must necessarily be of the same 
moral nature with God as the original type of love ; therefore the words that 
follow, and ver. 48. — rod év oipav.| See onvi. 9. As to the thought, comp. 
Seneca.? —67v] is not equivalent to 6c, but the simple as (for), stating that 
brwe yévnobe viol, k.7.A., isrightly said. Fritzsche here inappropriately (comp. 
already Bengel) dragsin the usage of ei¢ éxetvo 671.°— avarédAec] transitive. * — 
Tov #dov avtov|.° The goodness of God towards His enemies (sinners) Jesus 
makes His believers feel by the experimental proof of His all good adminis- 
tration in nature—a proof which, like every one derived @ posteriori in favor 
of a single divine attribute, is, on account of opposing experiences (God 
also destroys the good and the evil through natural manifestations), in itself 
insufficient, but, in popular instruction, has its proper place, and is of as- 
sured efficacy, with the same right as the special consideration of individual 
divine attributes in general. 

Ver. 46. Argumentum e contrario in favor of the command to love one’s 
enemy ; for the mere love of one’s friend belongs to no higher stage of 
moral life than that of the publicans and heathens.—In what follows neither 
is a pévov to be supplied after rove ayar. tuac, nor iséyere to be taken for éere 
(both in answer to Kuinoel and others). Jesus opposes the doctrine, ‘‘ Love 
them who love you,” and views the reward, as in ver. 12, vi. 1, as a posses- 
sion, preserved in heaven with God, to be realized in the kingdom of the 
future. —oi reddvai] the tax-gatherers (partly natives, partly Romans), who 
were employed in the service of the Roman knights, who farmed the reve- 
nues. They were generally greatly hated amongst the Jews on account of 
their severity and avarice, especially, however, for being the servants of the 
Roman power.® 

Ver. 47. And if ye shall have welcomed your bri hren alone (saluted them 


1 xviii. 21 ff.; Eph. iv. 32; Phil. ii. 1f.;1 4 Hom. 7. v\ 777; Pind. Isthm. vi. 5, v. 111; 


John iv. 10 f. Soph. Phi?. 1123; Diod. Sic. xvii. 7; LXX. 
2 De Benef. iv. 26: ‘‘ Si deos imitaris, da et Gen. iii. 18; Sir. xxxvii. 17; Clem. Cor. I. 

ingratis beneficia ; nam et sceleratis sol ori- 20. 

tur, et piratis patent maria,” ‘Tf you imi- 5 Magnifica appellatio ; ipse et fecit solem 


tate the gods, bestow kindnesses upon even et gubernat et habet in sua unius potes- 

the ungrateful ; for the sun arises upon even tate”? (Bengel). 

the accursed, and seas lie open to pirates.” 6 Wetstein on the passage; Keim, II. p. 
3 See on John ii. 18, ix. 17, etc. 217 f. 


140 THE GOSPEL OF MATTHEW. 


lovingly), what special thing have you done? The conception, ‘‘ to act in 
a friendly manner” (Luther, Tholuck, Bleek, Hofmann), is not the significa- 
tio, but certainly the adsignificatio of aorafecba, as often in classic writers.! 
— rove adeid. buav udvov] is not to be limited to the members of families and 
other close associations (Tholuck and others), as was already done by the 
reading ¢iAouc, approved of by Griesbach ; but it refers to the members of the 
nation, and applies to the national particularism of the Jews ; consequently 
the national antithesis is ol é@vixoi. Comp. Bleek. —7i zepicodv] what prefer- 
ence ? what distinguishes you above others.? Instead of ti repiccdv, Justin > 
quotes ri «avév, which substantially agrees with ri zepicodv, and belongs 
only to another form of the idea, not to a higher point of view (Hilgenfeld).* 

Ver. 48. “Ececte] imperatively. — oiv] draws a deduction from vy. 44-47, 
where the emphatic iueic forms the sublime antithesis to the last-mentioned 
publicans and heathens. The highest summary of the unending obligation 
of Christian love. — réAevor] év undevi Aeitéuevor, Jas. 1. 4. Euth. Zigabenus 
well remarks : of pév ayardvre¢ Tove ayarGvtag adtov¢ aredeic ciow eic ayargy: 
oi dé rove ExApode, ovToe TéAevot, ‘‘ They who love those that love them are in- 
complete in regard to (true) love ; but they who love their enemies are per- 
fect.”° Thus the closing admonition stands in close relation to what pre- 
cedes. Others (Beza, Fritzsche, Kuinoel, Ewald, who also regards vii. 12 
as originally belonging to this passage) : integri, sine vitiis in general, 
without exclusive reference to the Commandment of love. They consider 
the verse as the top-stone of the whole discourse, directed from ver. 20 on- 
wards against the Pharisees. But this anti-Pharisaic tendency is still con- 
tinued also in ch. vi., and the pointing to the example of God would at 
least not be appropriate to vv. 27 ff. and to 31 ff. — dorep] equality of the 
moral modality, ver. 45, by which the relation of the adequate degree is not 
required, and yet the ideal task, the obligation of which is never exhausted 
(Rom. xiii. 8 ff.), is for ever made sure. Observe, moreover, how this dozep 
corresponds, indeed, to the Platonic conception of virtue (duovwicta tO Oe@) 5 
the latter, however, is surpassed, on the one side, by the specific require- 
ment of love as similarity to God ; and, on the other, by the idea of God 
as the heavenly Father. 


1 Comp. aomageodar cai direcv, Stallbaum, 490 f. 


ad Plat. Ap. p. 29 D, and ep. 499 A. 5 Comp. Luther: ‘‘after the example of 
2** Ut decet filios Dei,” Bengel. Comp. the heavenly Father, who does not piece 

Rom. iii. 1; Soph. 0. R. 841. nor divide His love,” and already Ignatius, 
3 Apol. i. 15. ad Philad., interpol. 3. 


4 See Ritschl in the Yheol. Jahrb. 1851, p. 


CHAP. VIL 141 


CHAPTER VI. 


Ver. 1. After rposty. Tisch. inserts 64, no doubt only in conformity with 
L Z &, Curss. Verss. ; yet correctly, inasmuch as dé would be readily omitted 
from its coming immediately after the syllable TE, and from its reference not 
being noticed. — dixarootvyv] Elz. Matth. Scholz have éAenuootvyv, against B D 
8, 1, 209, 217, It. (Brix. excepted) Vulg. Or. and some other Fathers. A false 
gloss. — Ver. 4. aizéc] not found in BK L U Z 8, Curss. Vulg. It. Copt. Syreet 
and several Fathers. It seemed superfluous, and was accordingly omitted, and 
that all the more readily that it is likewise wanting in vv. 6, 18. Cancelled by 
Fritzsche, Lachm. and Tisch. 8. — cov] Elz. Griesb. Matth. Scholz add év rT 
davep@, Which is not found in BD Z 8, Curss. Codd. gr. in Aug. Syre™ Copt. 
Vulg. and several Fathers. Also in the case of ver. 6, the testimonies in favor 
of omitting are essentially the same ; while, as regards ver. 18, the testimony 
for excluding is far more decided. It should be retained in vv. 4 and 6, but in 
ver. 18 it is an interpolation, and ought to be deleted.!— Ver. 5. tpocevyy, ov 
éoy] Lachm. and Tisch. : rpocedynobe, ovk écecbe, after B Z, 1, 22, 116, Copt. 
Sahid. Aeth. Goth. It. Vulg. Or. Chrys. Aug. Correctly ; the singular was 
occasioned by the use of that number in what precedes and follows. S has 
mpocetyyn ovk Eceahe ; see, however, Tisch. on Cod. &. — Ver. 12. dgievev] D E L 
ATI, 157, 253, Ev. 26: adiovev; B Z 8*, 1, 124 (on the margin), Harl. For. Or. . 
Nyss. Bass. : a@jcayev. So Lachm. and Tisch. The latter is to be adopted. 
The reading of the Received text and agiouev are from Luke xi. 4, into which, 
again, as quoted in Origen (once), a¢7xawev has found its way from our present 
passage. — Ver. 13. xovypov] Elz. Matth. add the doxology : 67: cov éoTiy 7 actA. 
ela Kad 7) Odka el¢ Tode aidvac, ’Aujv. Against a preponderance of testimony, and 
contrary to the whole connection with ver. 14 f. A very old (Syr.) addition 
from the liturgy ; one, however, that has assumed a variety of forms. — Ver. 15, 
Ta Tapart. avtav] is correctly deleted by Tisch. It is wanting in D 8, Curss. 
Vulg. It. Syr. Aug., and how easy was it mechanically to insert it as a supple- 
ment from ver. 14!— Ver. 18. cor] Elz. Fritzsche add év 7@ gavepm ; see on ver. 
4, —Instead of xpuytr@, Lachm. and Tisch., in both instances, have kpudaig, 
after BD 8, 1, 22; correctly, seeing that xput7é is the common reading, and 
derived from vv. 4, 6, — Ver. 21. Instead of tuav, B 8, 1, 128, and important 
Verss. and Fathers, have cov both times, which Griesb. has recommended, and 
Fritzsche, Lachm. Tisch. have adopted. Correctly ; ducv is taken from Luke 
xii. 34. — Ver. 22. After the first 6¢9a%uéc Lachm. has cov, only after B, Vulg. 
Aeth. Codd. It. Or, Hil. Taken from the one which follows. Then in what 
comes next Lachm. places the 7 immediately after ody, only according to B. In 
® and several Verss. and Fathers odv is omitted ; deleted by Tisch. 8, against 
decisive testimony. Coming as it does after édv, it might easily be left out 


1Lachm. and Tisch. have deleted év 76 it is also erased by Griesb. Matth. and 
¢avepo in all the three passages; inver.18 Scholz. 


142 THE GOSPEL OF MATTHEW. 


through an oversight on the part of the transcriber. — Ver. 25. kai z/] Fritzsche, 
Lachm. 7 ri, according to B, Curss. and a few Verss. and Fathers. Too inade- 
quate testimony. ® Curss. Verss. and Fathers, who are followed by Tisch. 8, 
omit xa) ri xinre altogether. In conformity with Luke xii. 22. — Ver. 28. Instead 
of avédvet, xorid, and v7%er, Lachm. and Tisch. have the plurals, after B &, 
Curss. Ath. Chrys. Correctly. See Luke xii. 27. Likewise in ver. 32, where 
Lachm. and Tisch. have éritnrovo.v, the sing. is used to conform with Luke 
xii. 30. — Ver. 33. 7. Bao. 7. Oeov x. tT. Stxacoc, abrov] Lachm. : +, dixaroo, kai 7H 
Bacireiav avroi, only after B. In §&, 7. Oeov is wanting; and its omission, in 
which Tisch. 8 concurs, is favored by the testimony of the reading in B. Sev- 
eral Verss. and Fathers also leave out r. Geov, which, as being a supplement, 
ought to be deleted. The testimony is decisive, however, in favor of putting 
rT. Bac. first. — Ver, 34. ra éav77¢] Lachm. and Tisch. have merely éavrijc, accord- 
ing to important testimony. Correctly ; from the genitive not being under- 
stood, it was attempted to explain it by means of tu, and in other ways (mepl 


éavtic, EauTnv, EavTi). 


Ver. 1. Connection: However (xpocéyete dé, be upon your guard), to those 
doctrines and prescriptions regarding the true dicacootvy, I must add a warn- 
ing with reference to the practice of it (rovetv, 1 John ii, 7). This warning, 
stated in general terms in ver. 1, is then specially applied in ver. 2 to alms- 
giving, in ver. 5 to prayer, and in ver. 16 to fasting. Accordingly dccacooiry 
is righteousness generally (v. 6, 10, 20), and not benevolence specially, which, 
besides, it never means, not even in 2 Cor. ix. 10, any more than 1p7¥ (not 
even in Prov. x. 2, xi. 4; Dan. iv. 24), which in the LXX., and that more 
frequently by way of interpretation, is rendered by éAenuoobvy, in which the 
dcxacootvyn manifests itself by acts of charity.’— On ei dé phys, after which we 
are here to supply rpocéyere tiv dixatocby. bu. uy Tovey, etc., see on 2 Cor. xi, 
16. — pucfiv . . . ovpavoic] See on v. 12, 46. 

Ver. 2. M7 cadricnc| do not sound a trumpet, metaphorically : make no 
noise and display with it (Chrysostom, Theophylact, Euth. Zigabenus).? 
Here éuzp. refers to the idea of a person sounding a trumpet, which he 
holds up to his mouth. Others (Calvin, Calovius, Wolf, Paulus, also rivé¢ 
referred to by Euth. Zigabenus) render : cause not a trumpet to be sounded 
before thee. They think that, in order to make a display, the Pharisees had 
actually made the poor assemble together by the blowing of trumpets. But 
the expression itself is as decidedly incompatible with this extraordinary ex- 
planation as it is with the notion that what is meant (Homberg, Schoettgen) 
is the sound produced by the clinking of the money, dropped into the alleged 
trumpet-like chests in the temple (see on Mark xii. 41), and this notwith- 
standing that it is added, év 7. ovvay. x. év tr. piu.* In the synagogues it was 


1 Comp. Tob. ii. 14, xii. 9. quendam nummum pauperi dantem palam ; 
2Comp. Achill. Vat. viii. p. 507; Cic. ad cui dixit: praestat non dedisse, quam sic 
Div. xvi. 21: ‘te bueccinatorem fore exis- dedisse,”’ ‘‘ Rabbi Jannai saw a certain 


timationis meae,”’ ‘‘that you will be a person giving money to a poor man openly 

trumpeter of my good name :” Prudent. de (ostentatiously); to whom he said, it is 

Symmach. ii. 68. better not to have given at all, than to 
3On the injunction generally, comp. have given in this wise.” 

Babyl. Chagig. f. v. 1: ‘‘R. Jannai vidit 


CHAP. VI., 3-6. 143 


the practice to collect the alms on the Sabbath ; Lightfoot and Wetstein on 
this passage. — ézoxpita:] in classical writers means actors ; in the New Tes- 
tament, hypocrites.'— aréyovo.. . . avrov] inasmuch as they have already 
attained what was the sole object of their liberality, popular applause, and 
therefore have nothing more to expect. azéyeww, to have obtuined, to have 
Sully received. See on Phil. iv. 18. 

Ver. 3. Sov dé] in emphatic contrast to hypocrites. — pH yrdrw 7 aprotepa 
cov, k.7.A.] The right hand gives, let not the left hand know it. Proverbial 
way of expressing entire freedom from the claiming anything like self-lau- 
dation. For sayings of a similar kind among the Fathers, see Suicer, Z’hes. 
I. p. 508. De Wette, following Paulus, thinks that what is referred to is 
the counting of the money into the left hand before it is given away with the 
right. This is out of place, for the warning is directed, not against a 
narrow calculating, but against an ostentatious almsgiving. For the same 
reason we must object to the view of Luther, who says : ‘‘ When you are 
giving alms with the right hand, see that you are not seeking to receive more 
with the left, but rather put it behind your back,” and so on. 

Ver. 4. ‘0 Biérwv év 76 puerto] who sees, i.e. knows what goes on in secret, 
where He is equally present. Grotius and Kuinoel arbitrarily take the 
words tobe equivalent to ra év 76 kp. —abro¢ arodécer co] He Himself will 
reward you, that is, at the Messianic judgment (i.e. év 76 gavepo, 2 Cor. v. 
10) ; airé¢ forms a contrast to the human rewards, which the hypocrites, 
with their ostentatious ways of acting, managed to secure in the shape of 
applause from their fellow-men, ver. 2. 

Ver. 5. Ovx écecte] See the critical remarks. The future, as in v. 48. — 
bre] as in v. 45. —cdovow] they have pleasure in it, they love to do it,—a 
usage frequently met with in classical writers,? though in the New Testa- 
ment occurring only here and in xxiii. 6 f. —éo7dérec] The Jew stood, while 
praying, with the face turned toward the temple or the holy of holies, 1 
Sam. i. 26; 1 Kings viii. 22; Mark xi. 25; Luke xviii. 11 ;* at other 
times, however, also‘ in a kneeling posture, or prostrate on the ground. 
Therefore the notion of jizi, immobiles (Maldonatus), is not implied in the 
simple éor@r., which, however, forms a feature in the picture ; they love to 
stand there and pray. —év tai¢ yoviac r. x4] not merely when they happen to 
be surprised, or intentionally allow themselves to be surprised (de Wette), 
by the hour for prayer, but also at other times besides the regular hours of 
devotion, turning the most sacred duty of man into an occasion for hypo- 
critical ostentation. 

Ver. 6. Tayeiov] any room in the interior of the house, as opposed to the 
synagogues and the streets. We are therefore not to think exclusively of 
the closet in the strict sense of the word, which was called iepmov ; see note 
on Actsi. 13. For the expression, comp. Isa. xxvi. 20 ; for tayeiov, conclave.* 
—arodécet oor] for thy undemonstrative piety. It is not public prayer in 


1“ Hypocrisis est mixtura malitiae cum 3 Lightfoot, p. 292 f. 
specie bonitatis,” Bengel. 4 See Xen. Hell, v. 4.5; Matt. xxiv. 26; 


2 Eliendt, Lex. Soph. II. p. 910 f. Sir. xxix. 12; Tob. vii. 17. 


144 THE GOSPEL OF MATTHEW. 
itself that Jesus condemns, but praying in an ostentatious manner ; rather 
than this, He would have us betake ourselves to a lonely room.’ 

Ver. 7. Aé] indicating a transition to the consideration of another abuse 
of prayer. — Barrodoyeiv]* is not to be derived, with Suidas, Eustathius, 
Erasmus, from some one of the name of battus (passages in Wetstein), who, 
according to Herod. v. 155, was in the habit of stammering, but, as already 
Hesychius correctly perceived (kara piunow thc dwrqc), is to be regarded as a 
case of onomatopoeia (comp. Barradoc as a nickname of Demosthenes, ar- 
tapilw, Bartrapioudc, Bartapiorhc), and means, properly speaking, to stammer, 
then to prate, to babble, the same thing that is subsequently called rodvdoyia. 
Bw have the form Parradoy.; see Tisch. 8. —oi é@vixoi]. Whose prayers, so 
wordy and full of repetitions (hence, fatigare Deos), were well known.’ In 
Rabbinical writers are found recommendations sometimes of long, some- 
times of short, prayers (Wetstein). For an example of a Battological 
Jewish prayer, see Schoettgen, p. 58. f., comp. Matt. xxiii. 15 ; and for 
disapproval of long prayers, see Eccles. v. 1, Sir. vil. 14. — év rq rodvidoyia 
avtov| in consequence of their much speaking ; they imagine that this is the 
cause of their being heard.‘ 

Ver. 8. Oiv| seeing that you are expected to shun heathen error. — oide 
yap, x.t.a.] so that, this being the case, that Barrodoyeiv is superfluous. 

Ver. 9. ‘‘ Having now rebuked and condemned such false and meaning- 
less prayer, Christ goes on to prescribe a short, neat form of His own to 
show us how we are to pray, and what we are to pray for,” Luther.—The 
emphasis is, in the first place, on oirwc, and then on iyeic, the latter in con- 
trast to the heathen, the former to the Barrodoyeiv ; while oty is equivalent 
to saying, ‘‘inasmuch as ye ought not to be like the heathen when they 
pray.” Therefore, judging from the context, Christ intends oirwc to point to 
the prayer which follows asan example of one that is free from vain repeti- 
tions, as an example of what a prayer ought to be in respect of its form and 
contents if the fault in question is to be entirely avoided, not as.a direct pre- 
scribed pattern (comp. Tholuck), excluding other ways of expressing our- 
selves in prayer. The interpretation, ‘‘in hune senswm’” (Grotius), is at 
variance with the context ; but that of Fritzsche (in some brief way such as 
this) is not ‘‘ very meaningless” (de Wette), but correct, meaning as he does, 
not brevity in itself, but in its relation to the contents (for comprehensive 
brevity is the opposite of the vain repetitions). On the Lord’s Prayer, 
which now follows, see Kamphausen, d. Gebet d. Herrn, 1866 ; J. Hanne, 


1 Theophylact : 6 tém0s ob BAdmret, AAA’ O 
TpOTos Kal O TKOTOS. 

2 Simplic. ad Zpict. p. 340. 

3 Terent. Heautont. v. 1. 6 ff. 

4 As to the thing, consider the words of 
Augustine : ‘‘ Absit ab oratione multa locu- 
tio, sed non desit multa precatio, si fervens 
perseveret intentio ;” the former, he adds, 
is ‘‘rem necessariam superfluis agere ver- 
bis,’ but the multum precari is : ‘‘ad eum, 
quem precamur, diuturna et pia cordis 


excitatione pulsare,’’ ‘‘Let much speaking 
be absent from prayer, but let not much 
supplication be wanting, if fervent pur- 
pose steadfastly abides :” the former, he 
adds, is ‘‘to accomplish a necessary duty 
with superfluous words,” but the suppli- 
cating much is, ‘‘ to urge us, with long con- 
tinued and pious rousing up of soul, to Him 
whom we.supplicate.” (Zp. 180. 20, ad 
probam.) U 


CHAP. VI., 9. 145 


in d. Jahrb. f. D. Th. 1866, p. 507 ff. ; and in Schenkel’s Bibellex. II. p. 
346 ff. According to Luke xi. 1, the same prayer, though in a somewhat 
shorter form, was given on a different occasion. In regard to this differ- 
ence of position, it may be noted : (1) That the prayer cannot have been 
given on both occasions, and so given twice (as I formerly believed) ; for if 
Jesus has taught His disciples the use of it as early as the time of the Ser- 
mon on the Mount, it follows that their request in Luke xi. 1 is unhistorical ; 
but if, on the contrary, the latter is historical, then it is impossible that the 
Lord’s Prayer can have been known in the circle of the disciples from the 
date of the Sermon on the Mount. (2) That the characteristic brevity of 
Luke’s version, as compared with the fulness of that of Matthew, tells in 
favor of Luke’s originality ; but, besides this,-there is the fact that the 
historical basis on which Luke’s version is founded leaves no room whatever 
to suspect that legendary influences have been at work in its formation, 
while it is perfectly conceivable that the author of our version of Matthew, 
when he came to that part of the Sermon on the Mount where warnings are 
directed against meaningless repetitions in prayer, took occasion also to 
put this existing model prayer into our Lord’s mouth, Schleiermacher, 
Baumgarten-Crusius, Sieffert, Olshausen, Neander, de Wette, Ewald, Bleek, 
Holtzmann, Weiss, Weizsiicker, Schenkel, Hanne, Kamphausen, also rightly 
declare themselves against the position of the prayer in Matthew as unhis- 
torical. The material superiority of Matthew’s version (see especially Keim) 
remains unaffected by this verdict. On the Marcionitic form, especially in 
the first petition, and on the priority of the same as maintained by Hilgen- 
feld, Zeller, Volkmar, see the critical notes on Luke xi. 2-4. — rarep 7juav] 
This form of address, which rarely occurs in the O. T.,! but which is con- 
stantly employed in the N. T. in accordance with the example of Jesus, who 
exalted it even into the name for God,? brings the petitioner at once into an 
attitude of perfect confidence in the divine love ; ‘‘ God seeks to entice us 
with it,” and so on, Luther.’ But the consciousness of our standing as 
children in the full and specially Christian sense (comp. on v. 9), it was not 
possible perfectly to express in this address till a later time, seeing that the 
relation in question was only to be re-established by the atoning death. — 
6 év roic obpavoic] distinguishes Him who is adored in the character of Father 
as the true God, but the symbolical explanations that have been given are of 
an arbitrary character (Kuinoel, ‘‘Deus optime maxime, benignissime et 
potentissime ;” de Wette, ‘‘the elevation of God above the world ;” 
Baumgarten-Crusius, ‘‘God who exists for all men ;” Hanne, ‘‘ Father of 
all”). Surely such a line of interpretation ought to have been precluded 
by ver. 10, as well as by the doctrine which teaches that Christ has come from 
heaven from the Father, that He has returned to heaven to the right hand 


lIsa. lxiii, 16; Deut. xxxii. 6; in the here and in Luke xi. 2 by wnser Vater, in 
Apocrypha, in Wisd. ii. 16, xiv. 3; Sir. the Catechism and manuals of prayer and 


xxiii. 1; li. 10; Tob. xiii. 4; 8 Macc. vi. 3. baptism, Vater unser, after the Latin Pater 
2 Mark xiv. 36; Weisse, Hvangelienfr. p. noster. See Rienecker in d. Stud. u. Krit. 
200 ff. 1837, p. 828 f. Kamphausen, p. 30 f. 


3In his translation, Luther renders it 


146 THE GOSPEL OF MATTHEW. 

of the Father, and that He will return again in majesty from heaven. The 
only true God, though everywhere present (2 Chron. ii. 6), nevertheless has 
His special abode in heaven ; heaven is specially the place where He dwells in 
majesty, and where the throne of His glory is set,’ from which, too, the Spirit 
of God (iii. 16 ; Acts li.), the voice of God (iii. 17 ; John xii. 28), and the 
angels of God (John i. 52) come down. Upon the idea of God’s dwelling- 
place is based that very common Jewish invocation DDWAY 1238 (Light- 
foot, p. 229), just as it may be affirmed in a general way that? ‘‘ ravre¢ rov 
avetato TO (ein térov arodidéact,” ‘‘all men assign the highest place to the 
Deity,” Aristot. de Coelo, i. 3.8 On heaven as a plural (in answer to 
Kamphausen), comp. note on 2 Cor. xil. 2; Eph. iv. 10. —dyao6jro] 
Chrysost., Euth. Zigabenus, dofac6j7w ; more precisely, let it be kept sacred 
(Ex. xx. 8; Isa. xxix. 23). God’s name is, no doubt, ‘‘holy in itself” 
(Luther), objectively and absolutely so ; but this holiness must be asserted 
and displayed in the whole being and character of believers (‘‘ut non existi- 
ment aliquid sanctum, quod magis offendere timeant,”” Augustine), inwardly 
and outwardly, so that disposition, word, and deed are regulated by the 
acknowledged perfection of God, and brought into harmony with it. 
Exactly as in the case of v3), Lev. x. 8, xxii. 2, 82; Ezek. xxviii. 22, 
XXXvili. 23; Num. xx. 13; Sir. xxxili. 4; 1 Pet. iii. 15.— 70d évoua cov} 
Everything which, in its distinctive conception, Thy name embraces and 
expresses, numen tuum, Thy entire perfection, as the object revealed to the 
believer for his apprehension, confession, and worship. So) DY, Ps. v. 
12, ix. 11; Isa. xxix. 23 ; Ezek. xxxvi. 23; and frequently also in the 
Apocrypha. Everything impure, repugnant to the nature of God, is a 
profanation, a BeByAovv 7d dvoua Td dyov (Lev. xviii. 21).—Observe once 
more that the three imperatives in vv. 9, 10 are not meant to express the 
idea of a resolution and a vow (Hanne, comp. Weizsiicker), which is opposed 
to mpoceiyeote, but they are aitjuara (Phil. iv. 6), supplications and desires, 
as in xxvi. 39, 42. [See note VI., p. 159, seq. ] 

Ver. 10.4 ’EAGér0, x.7.4.] Let the kingdom of the Messiah appear. This was 
likewise a leading point in the prayers of the Jews, especially in the Kad- 
disch, which had been in regular use since the captivity, and which con- 
tained the words, Regnet tuum regnum ; redemptio mox veniat.* Here, like- 
wise, the kingdom of God is no other than the kingdom of the Messiah, the 
advent of which was the supreme object of pious longing.® This view of 
the kingdom and its coming, as the winding up of the world’s history, a view 


1 Jsa. Ixvi, 13 Ps. ii: 4) cli. 19; exv., 3; Job 
XXii. 12 ff. ; Acts vil. 55,565; 1 Tim. vi. 16. 

2 Comp. the teot ovpaviwves of Homer. 

8’ Comp. generally, Ch, F. Fritzsche, nov. 
Opusc. p. 218 ff. Augustine, p. 187. 16, cor- 
rectly thinks that there may be an allusion 
to the heavenly temple, ‘‘ ubi est populus 
angelorum, quibus aggregandi et coaequan- 
di sumus, cum finita peregrinatione quod 
promissum est sumserimus,”’ ‘‘ Where is 
the host of angels, to whom we are to be 
joined and made equal, when, our peregrin- 


ation being finished, we shall have attained 
that which is promised.” 

4 On the inverted order of the second and 
third petition in Tertullian, see Nitzsch in 
the Stud. u. Krit. 1830, p. 846 ff. This trans- 
position appeared more logical and more 
historical. 

5 Hence the canon, 73 pRw maa 55 
MD72 AYN ma5D. Bab. Berac. f. 40. 2. 

6 Luke ii 25, xvii. 20; Mark xv. 48; Luke 
KXIS 18) xxii, ol 32) Dims iv. 8: 


CHAP: V1.5 11. 147 


which was also shared by the principal Fathers (Tertullian, Chrysostom, 
Augustine, Euth. Zigabenus), is the only one which corresponds with the 
historical conception of the Paovdcia r. Oeot throughout the whole of the 
N.T.; comp. on iii. 2, the kingdom comes with the Messiah who comes to 
establish it ; Mark xi. 9, 10; Luke xxiii. 42. The ethical development 
tut. ol) ff. xxiv 14s comp. on. iis 2yv. 3 i.) 48; also on Acts ii. 21), 
which necessarily precedes the advent of the kingdom (Luke xix. 11) and 
prepares the way for it, and with which the diffusion of Christianity is 
bound up, xxviii. 19 (Grotius, Kuinoel), forms the essential condition of that 
advent, and through éA@érw, «.7.A., 18 thus far indirectly (as the means 
toward the wished-for end) included in the petition, though not expressly 
mentioned in so many words, so that we are not called upon either to sub- 
stitute for the concrete conception of the future kingdom (Luke xxii. 18) 
one of an ethical, of a more or less rationalistic character (Jerome, Origen, 
Wetstein : of the moral sway of Christianity ; Baumgarten-Crusius : the de- 
velopment of the cause of God among men), or immediately to associate 
them together. This in answer also to Luther (‘‘God’s kingdom comes first 
of all in time and here below through God’s word and faith, and then here- 
after in eternity through the revelation of Christ”), Melanchthon, Calvin, 
de Wette, Tholuck, ‘‘the kingdom of God typified in Israel, coming in its 
reality in Christ, and ever more and more perfected by Him as time goes on ;” 
comp. Bleek. — yevnfgtw, x.t.A.] May Thy will (vii. 21 ; 1 Thess. iv. 3) be 
done, as by the angels (Ps. citi. 21), so also by men. This is the practical moral 
necessity in the life of believers, which, with its ideal requirements, is to 
determine and regulate that life until the fulfilment of the second petition 
shall have been accomplished. ‘‘ Thusit is that the third petition, descend- 
ing into the depths of man’s present condition and circumstances, damps 
the glow of the second,” Ewald.’ Accordingly the will of God here meant 
is not necessarily the voluntas decernens (Beza), but praecipiens, which is 
fulfilled by the good angels of heaven. This petition, which is omitted in 
Luke, is not to be taken merely as an explanation (Kamphausen) of the one 
which precedes it, nor as tautological (Hanne), but as exhibiting to the pe- 
titioner for the kingdom the full eatent of moral requirement, without com- 
plying with which it is impossible to be admitted into the kingdom when 
it actually comes. As, according to ver. 33, the Christian is called upon to 
strive after the kingdom and the righteousness of God ; so here, after the 
petition for the coming of the kingdom, it is asked that righteousness, which 
is the thing that God wills, may be realized upon the earth. 

Ver. 11. Tov aprov] same as on), victus ; Gen. xvill. 5 ; Prov. xxx. 8; 2 
Thess. iii. 12; Sir. x. 26 ; Wisd. xvi. 20. — rdv érvotovov] occurring nowhere 
else in the Greek language but here and in Luke xi. 3.7 It is possible that 
it may be derived from ovcia, and accordingly the phrase has been supposed 
to mean : the food necessary for subsistence, ‘PN pn, ROVE ONS Vat 





7“ Coelum norma est terrae, in qua aliter 2 See Origen, de Orat. § 27: €o.xe wemAao- 
alia fiunt omnia,” ‘* Heaven is the pattern Sar ird Tov evayyeAoTor, ‘it seems to haye 
for earth, where all things are inharmoni- been formed by the evangelists.”’ 


ous,”’ Bengel. 


148 THE GOSPEL OF MATTHEW. 

Origen, Chrysostom, Theophylact, Euth. Zigabenus, Etym. M.; Beza, Mal- 
donatus, Kuinoel, Tholuck, Ewald (de Wette undecided), Arnoldi, Bleek, 
Weizsiicker, Keim, Hanne, and probably this explanation has also given rise 
to the rendering ‘‘daily bread” (It., Chrysostom, Luther), é¢juepoc, Jas. 11. 
15.1 But oicia does not mean subsistence (cvotacic), but * essence, as also real- 
ity, and, finally, possessions, res familiaris, in which sense also it is to be 
taken in Soph. Trach. 907 (911), where the words ra¢ araida¢g ovoiac denote 
a home without children. In deriving the expression, therefore, from ovoia, 
the idea of necessary food* must be brought out in a very indirect way (as 
Gregory of Nyssa : that which is requisite or sufficient for the support of 
the body ; comp. Chrysostom, Tholuck, Hitzig). Again, if the word were 
to be derived from ovcia (eivar), it would have to be spelt, not éxvobatoc, but 
érovowoc, in a way analogous to the forms ézovoia, overplus, éxovorwdyc, non- 
essential, which come from elvaw. Forms in which there is either a different 
preposition (such as repiovovoc), or in which the derivation has no connection 
with eivac (as éxvopkeiv), have been brought forward without any reason with 
a view to support the above ordinary explanation. After all this we must, 
for reasons derived from grammatical considerations (in answer to Leo 
Meyer, Weizsiicker, Kamphausen, Keim), prefer the other possible deriva- 
tion from # éxica (therefore from érévac), dies crastinus,* which is already 
expressly given by Ambrose, lib. v. de sacram. 4. 24, and according to 
which we should have to interpret the words as meaning to-morrow’s bread.° 
This explanation, furnished historically by the Gospel according to the He- 
brews, where Jerome found 111, is recommended in the context by the 
ahuepov, Which, besides, has no correlative, nor is it incompatible with ver. 
34, where the taking no thought for to-morrow does not exclude, but rather 
presupposes (1 Pet. v. 7), the asking for to-morrow’s bread, while, moreover, 
this request is quite justified as a matter of prayer, considering how cer- 
tain is the uncertainty of life’s duration. The granting to-day of to-morrow’s 
bread is, accordingly, the narrow limit which Christ here assigns to prayers 


1 Comp. Victorinus, c. Ar. ii. p. 273, Au- 
gustine. 

2 Ast, Lex. Plat. Il. p. 491 f. 

3To this amounts also the view of Leo 
Meyer in Kuhn’s Zeitschr. f. vergleich. 
Sprachforsch. VII. 6, p. 401 ff., who, how- 
ever, regards the word as expressing adjec- 
tively the idea of the aim involved in the 
éent: ‘what énxi is.’ In this Kamphausen 
substantially concurs. The word is said to 
be derived from émetvar: “ belonging to,” in 
which the idea of being “‘ sufficient” or nec- 
essary is understood to be implied. But in 
that case we should also have expected to 
find émovctos, and besides, éwetvar certainly 
does not mean ¢o belong to, but to be by, also 
to be standing over, to impend, and so on. 
This explanation of émovavos is an erroneous 
etymological conjecture. Bengel very prop- 
erly observes: ‘‘émé non semper quidem 
in compositione ante vocalem amittit, sed 


amittit tamen in éreorv,” ‘ éxi does not 
indeed always lose in composition before a 
vowel, but yet it loses in émeorw.”’ [See 
Lightfoot, A Fresh Revision of the English 
New Testament, Appendix on the words 
émovatos, Teptovatos.—ED. | 

4 Lobeck, ad Phryn. p. 464; Prov. xxvii. 1. 

5 Not what is necessary for the newt meal 
(Rettig in the Stud. u. E7vit. 1888, p. 238). 
Baumgarten-Crusius, correctly, ‘to-day, 
what we need for to-morrow.’’? On o7jpepov 
was founded the very ancient (Constitutt. 
apost. vii. 24. 1 f., Tertullian, Cyprian) daily 
use of the Lord’s Prayer. So Ar., Aeth., 
Copt., Sahid., Erasmus, Annot., Scaliger, 
Salmasius, Grotius, Wolf, Bengel, Wetstein, 
Valckenaer, Schol. I. p. 190, and V; also 
Winer, p. 92 [E. T. 120], Fritzsche, Kiéuffer, 
Schegg, D6llinger, Hilgenfeld, Holtzmann, 
Schenkel, Wittichen. 


CHAP. WE; 12, 3. 149 
for earthly objects,—a limit not open to the charge of want of modesty 
(Keim), inasmuch as it is fixed only at de die in diem. Of late, Olshausen 
and Delitzsch (‘‘the bread necessary for man’s spiritual and physical life’) 
have again adopted, at least along with the other view, the erroneous expla- 
nation, —exegetically inconsistent with ofuepor, but originating in a supposed . 
perverse ascetism, and favored by the tendency to mystical interpretation 
generally, no less than by the early (Irenaeus, Haer.,iv. 18) reference to the 
Lord’s Supper in particular,—the explanation, namely, that what is here 
meant is supernatural,’ heavenly food (John vi.), as, indeed, many Fathers 
(Cyprian and Jerome) and older expositors understood both kinds of bread 
to be included. [See note V., p. 158, seq. ] 

Ver. 12. ‘Q¢ Kai yueic, x.7.A.] does not indicate the extent (Chrysostom, 
Baumgarten-Crusius) to which forgiveness is asked from God, which is not 
in harmony with the tone of the prayer ; rather is &¢ the as which assigns 
the reason as well as makes the comparison, doubtless not as being directly 
equivalent to nam (Fritzsche), but it expresses the existence of a frame of 
mind on the part of the petitioner corresponding to the divine forgiveness : 
as then, we also, and so on.? Yet not as though human forgiveness can be 
supposed to merit the divine pardon, but the former is the necessary moral 
“‘ requisitum subjecti” (Calovius) in him who seeks forgiveness from God.* — 
agdjxapev| see the critical remarks. Jesus justly presupposes that the believer 
who asks from God the remission of his own debts has already forgiven (Sir. 
xxviii. 2; Mark xi. 25) those who are indebted to him—that, according to 
Luke, he doesit at the same time. 

Ver. 13. After the petition for forgiveness of sin, comes now the request to 
be preserved from new sin, negatively and positively, so that both elements 
constitute but one petition. Luke makes no mention whatever of the aid 
pocat, etc. — py eicevéyxye, «.t.A.] Neither the idea of mere permission,* nor 
the emphatic meanings which have been given, first to the eicevéyryc,°? then to 
the recpacydc,® and lastly, to the cic,” are in keeping with the simple terms 
employed ; such interpretations are rationalistic in their character, as is also, 
once more, the case with Kamphausen’s limitation to temptations with an evil 
result. God leads into. temptation in so far as, in the course of His adminis- 
tration, He brings about a state of things that may lead to temptation, 7.e., 


1 The expression was derived partly from 
ér.uov (as Ambrose)—the bread of the world 
to come (so again Weisse, Hvangelienfr. p. 
201); partly from ovaia, in which case it was 
interpreted to mean: the bread requisite 
for the life of the soul ; or, as though it were 
Umepovovos: panis supersubstantialis; as in 
the Vulg. and Jerome (‘‘ super omnes substan- 
tias”’). Melanchthon fully and pointedly 
expresses his opposition to the view of 
heavenly bread, when he says: ‘‘Its advo- 
cates are deficient in ervditio et spirituale 
judicium.” Wowever, itis likewise found 
in Erasmus’s Paraphr.; but Calvin pro- 
nounces: “ prorsus absurdum est.” 


2 See on John xiii. 84; Schaeffer, ad Dem. 
V. p. 108; Hartung, Partikell. I. p. 460; 
Klotz, ad Devar. p. 766; comp. Luke xi. 4. 

3 Comp. xviii. 21 ff. ; Apol. Conf. A. p. 115 
f.; Cat. maj. p. 528; Kamphausen, p. 113. 

4 uh mapaxwpyops eioevexdqvar, Euth. Ziga- 
benus, Tertullian, Melanchthon. 

5 uy Katanodjvar ro TOU Te_pacpod, * not 
to be swallowed up by the temptation.” 
Theophylact. 

6 Jerome, in Hzek. xlviii.: ‘‘in tenta- 
tionem, guam ferre non possumus.”’ 

7Grotius: ‘“‘penitus introducere, ut ei 
succumbas,” “to bring deeply within, so 
that one would yield to it.” 


150 THE GOSPEL OF MATTHEW. 


the situations and circumstances that furnish an occasion for sinning ; and 
therefore, if a man happens to encounter such dangers to his soul, it is caused 
by God—it is He who does it (1 Cor. x. 18). In this way is solved, at the 
same time, the apparent contradiction with Jas. i. 13, where it is a question 
of subjective inward temptation, the active principle of which is, not God, 
but the man’s own lusts.’ In these latter are also to be found, in the case of 
the believer, and that in consequence of his odpé (xxvi. 41 ; Gal. v. 17), the 
great moral danger which renders this prayer a matter of necessity. —a//a 
pvoat Huac ard Tov rovypov) Rom. xv. 81; 1 Thess. i. 10; 2 Thess. iii. 2 ; 2 
Tim. iv. 18. But rov rovypov may be neuter (Augustine, Luther,—see, how- 
ever, Catech. maj. p. 532 f.,—Tholuck, Ewald, Lange, Bleek, Kamphausen) as 
well as masculine (Tertullian, Origen, Chrysostom, Theophylact, Erasmus, 
Beza, Maldonatus, Kuinoel, Fritzsche, Olshausen, Ebrard, Keim, Hilgenfeld, 
Hanne). In the former case, it would not mean ‘‘ evi/” in general,’ but, ac- 
cording to the New Testament use of rovypéc, as well as the context, moral 
wickedness, Rom. xii. 9. However, it is more in keeping with the concrete 
graphic manner of view of the New Testament (v. 87, xiii. 19 ; John xvii. 15 ; 
1 John ii. 138, iii. 8, 12 ; Rom. xvi. 20 ; Eph. vi. 16 ; 2 Thess. iii. 3), to pre- 
fer the masculine as meaning the devil,* whose seductive influence, even over 
believers, is presupposed in the seventh petition, which also supplicates 
divine deliverance from this danger, by which they know themselves to be 
threatened (aré : away from; not éx, asin Rom. vii. 24 ; 2 Cor. i. 10 ; Col. i. 
13; 2 Tim. iii. 11, iv. 17; 2 Pet. ii. 9). For an opposite view of a by no 
means convincing kind, see Kamphausen, p. 136 ff. 


Remarks.—The Lord’s Prayer, as it stands in Matthew, is an example of a 
prayer rich and true in respect of its contents, and expressed in language at 
once brief and comprehensive ; see on ver. 9. It is only in an indirect way that 
it presents itself in the light of a summary of the principal matters for which 
one is to pray (Nosselt, HKvercitatt. sacr. p. 2 ff., Kuinoel, de Wette), inasmuch 
as Jesus, as matter of course, selected and connected with each other such 
leading requests as were appropriate to the solemn period when the establish- 
ment of His kingdom was at hand, that, by setting before us a prayer of so 
comprehensive a character, He might render the model thus supplied all the 
more instructive. Tertullian, indeed, correctly describes the contents of it as 
breviarium totius evangelii. According to Moller (neue Ansichten, p. 34 ff.) and 
Augusti (Denkwiirdigk. IV. p. 132), the prayer before us is made up merely of 
the opening words of well-known Jewish prayers, which Jesus is supposed to 
have selected from the mass of Jewish forms of devotion as being eminently 
adapted for the use of His disciples. Wetstein already was of opinion that it 
was ‘ex formulis Hebraeorum concinnata.’’ But between the whole of the parallels 
(Lightfoot, Schoettgen, Wetstein), not even excepting those taken from the 
synagogal prayer Kaddisch, there is only a partial correspondence, especially in 


1 Comp. Késter, Bibl. Lehre v. d. Versuch, eminently is that one thus called,” Chrys- 


ja), iksyaie ostom. 
2 “*Omne id quod felicitati nostrae adver- 4 Hofmann, Schriftbeweis, I. p. 447 ; Krum- 
sum est,’’ Olearius. macher in the Stud. u. Krit. 1860, p. 122 ff. 


3 «ar’ e£oxny dé oUTws Exeltvos KadetTaL, ‘* pre- 


CHAP VI., 14-16. 151 


the case of the first and second petitions ; but lively echoes of familiar prayers 
would so naturally suggest themselves to our Lord, and any reason for reject- 
ing them was so entirely wanting, that the absence of such popularly conse- 
erated echoes, extending to the very words, would even have been matter for 
surprise. — Augustine divides the contents into seven petitions ; and in this 
he is followed by the Lutheran practice, as also by Tholuck, Bleek, Hilgenfeld. 
On the other hand, Origen and Chrysostom correctly make six, in which they 
are followed by the practice of the Reformed Church in the catechisms of 
Geneva and of the Palatinate, as also by Calvin, Keim. As to the division of 
the prayer in respect of form, it is sufficient to observe, with Bengel: ‘‘ Petita 
sunt septem, quae universa dividuntur in duas partes. Prior continet tria 
priora, Patrem spectantia : tuum, tuum, tua; posterior quatuor reliqua, nos spec- 
tantia,” According to Calvin, the fourth petition is the beginning of ‘quasi 
secunda tabula” of the prayer. In regard to the matter, the twofold division into 
coelestia and terrena, which has been in vogue since Tertullian’s time, is sub- 
stantially correct ; and in the more detailed representation of which there follows 
—after the upward flight towards what is of highest and holiest interest for be- 
lievers, and the specific nature of which, with the aim for which it longs, and 
its moral condition, floats before the praying spirit—a humble frame of spirit, pro- 
duced by the consciousness of man’s need of God’s favor, first in the temporal 
and then in the moral sphere, in which the realization of that with which the 
prayer begins can be brought about only through forgiveness, divine guidance, 
and deliverance from the power of the devil. The division into vows and petitions 
(Hanne) is inaccurate ; see on ver. 9. 


Ver. 14 f. Tap] points back to ver. 12, the subject of which is now fur- 
ther discussed. — agjoev| like the preceding a¢yre, placed first to render it 
emphatic. For the thought, the fundamental basis of which was stated 
in ver. 44 ff., comp. Sir. xxviii. 2 ff. 

Ver. 16. Aé] indicating a transition from the subject of prayer to another 
kindred subject. — vyoreiyte] here with reference to private fasting, which 
depended on the inclination of the individual,’ though regularly observed 
by the Pharisees on Thursday (when Moses is supposed to have ascended 
Mount Sinai) and on Monday (when he is believed to have come down again), 
but never on the Sabbath and festival days, except at the feast of Purim. 
Mourning attire was worn during the fasting.* — cxvfpwoi] common in the 
classics.° —agavifover] is a play upon the word in allusion to gavac.. They 
conceal their countenances with a view to their ‘‘being seen of,” and so on. 
This is intended to indicate how, partly by sprinkling themselves with 
ashes, and by the dirt on the unwashed face and beard, and partly by actual 
veiling of themselves (2 Sam. xv. 30 ; Esth. vi. 12), they contrive to prevent 
it being seen what their countenance is really like. It should be observed, 
however, that agavifeww does not mean to disfigure, but, even in passages 


1 Ewald, Alterth. p. 110. vultum habentem, sed fingentem vel au- 
2 Tsa. lviii. 5, xi. 3; Joel ii. 12; Zech. vii. gentem,”’ ‘‘Commonly it is regarded asa 
8; Dan. x.3; 2 Sam. xii. 20, xiii. 19; 1 Macc. defect, and denotes a man not only having 
lii. 47. asad and sour face, but also feigning and 


3“ Plerumque in vitio ponitur et notat enlarging,’ Bremi, ad Aeschin. adv. Clesiph. 
hominem non solum tristem et tetricum p. 290 f. 


152 THE GOSPEL OF MATTHEW. 


like the one quoted from Stob. Serm. 74, 62, with reference to a painted 
woman, it denotes to make invisible, e conspectu submovere. The Vulgate cor- 
rectly renders by exterminant, i.e. e conspectu removent.' Hence in Greek 
writers it is often associated with xkpirrevw. 

Ver. 17. Dress thyself as if to go to a festive entertainment.? Of course 
Jesus does not intend the anointing, and so on, to be taken Jiterally ; but 
under this form of requirement He expresses the sincerity which He desires 
in connection with the—of itself voluntary—practise of fasting. Comp. 
Chrysostom. The form is one that is suited to an attitude of radical oppo- 
sition to Jewish formalism. Luther: ‘‘If thou so fastest between thyself 
and thy Father alone, thou hast rightly fasted in that it pleases Him ; yet 
not as if one must not go on a fast-day with few clothes, or unwashed, but 
the additional ceremony is rejected, because it is observed for the sake of 
applause, and to hoodwink people with such singular demeanor.” 

Ver. 18. Td év t© Kpudaiw] se. dvt, i.e., who is present where we are hidden 
Srom human eye. He who fasts is iv 76 xpvdaiw everywhere, when he is 
present as anointed and washed, for in this state of his person no one will 
be able to recognize him as fasting. In accordance with this, we are bound 
to reject the explanation of Fritzsche, who supplies vyarevew (‘‘ eo quod clam 
inediam in te suscipias,” ‘‘ for the reason that you secretly undertake a fast 
for yourself”), which, however, is far-fetched, and introduces a superfluous 
meaning, besides being inconsistent with ver. 6. — azodécex cor] not the fast- 
ing by itself, but the sincerely penitent and humble frame of mind, which 
secks to express itself in that devout fasting which is free from everything 
like pretence and ostentation ; there is therefore no satisfactory reason for 
expunging vv. 16-18 (as also vv. 1-6) from the Sermon on the Mount.* 

Vv. 19-34. Comp. Luke xii. 33 f., xi. 34 ff., xii. 22 ff. The theme stated 
in ver. 1 is still pursued, and, without any formal indication of a transi- 
tion, a new and essential point in the discourse is here introduced, viz. care 
about earthly things, which is treated (1) as striving after wealth, vv. 19-24, 
and (2) as care for food and raiment, vv. 25-35. To give up the idea of a 
fixed plan from this point onwards (de Wette), and especially to regard vv. 
19-34 as an irrelevant interpolation (Neander, Bleek, Weiss), is quite unwar- 
ranted, for we must not lose sight of the fact that the discourse was intend- 
ed not merely for the disciples, but for the people as well (vii. 28). The 
unity of the Sermon on the Mount is not that of a sermon in our sense of the 
word ; but the internal connection of the thought in ver. 19 ff. with what 
goes before lies in the azodéoe: oor just mentioned, and the object belong- 
ing to which is, in fact, the heavenly treasures. 

Ver. 19. Oycavpotc| Treasures. 'To understand particular kinds of them, 
either stores of corn, or costly raiment, or gold and silver, is a mistake, for the 
special treasure meant would also require to have been specially indicated. 
— PBpaaic] eating, corroding in general, Any further defining of the matter, 


1 Beck, Anecd. p. 468, 25: GAws 7d avedctv tion.” 
Kal adavés Tolyoat, Omep exadAouv aiatacat, 2 Ps. xxiii. 5; Luke vii. 46; Suicer, Zhes. 
“The taking away entirely and making to I. p. 185; Wetstein. 
disappear, which thing men call annihila- 3 Wittichen, Jdee des Menschen, p. 100. 


CHAP, VI., 20-23. 153 


whether with the Vulgate and Luther we understand rust (Jas. v. 2, 3) or 
weevils (Clericus, Kuinoel, Baumgarten-Crusius) to be meant, is arbitrary, 
as is also the assumption of a év 61d dvoiv for oye Bpeoxovoca (Casaubon in 
Wolf. — dgavifer] causes to disappear, annihilates. Comp. note on ver. 16. 
On oézov (upon earth) Bengel correctly observes : ‘‘Habet vim aetiologiae,” 
‘it has the force of a bringing of proof.” The thieves dig through (the 
wall),’ and steal. 

Ver. 20. ’Ev otpavo] belongs to @ycavpifere. By what means is this done ? 
By everything which the Lord has hitherto been insisting upon from ver. 3 
onwards as the condition on which those who believe in Him are to obtain 
eternal salvation, and which therefore constitutes the sum and substance of 
the dicacocivy that comes through faith in Him. In this way, and not spe- 
cially by almsgiving, xix. 21, which, according to v. 7, vi. 3, is here only in- 
cluded along with other matters (in answer to Chrysostom), do men gather 
treasures (the Messianic felicity) for themselves, which are reserved for us 
with God in heaven until the establishment of the Messiah’s kingdom, in 
which their bestowal is then to take place. Comp. on v. 12. 

Ver. 21. For (deep moral obligation to comply with that exhortation) if the 
treasure which you have gathered is upon earth, so will your heart, with its 
feelings, dispositions, and tendencies, be also upon the earth asin the con- 
genial sphere of your inner life, will be ethically bound to the earth, and vice 
versa. From the treasure, which is the result of effort and the object of 
love, the heart also cannot be separated. In the ground of obligation just 
stated it is asswmed that the believer's heart must be in heaven.? 

Vv. 22, 23. Connection : In order to fulfil the duty mentioned in vv. 19, 
20, and warranted by what is said in ver. 21, you must not allow the light 
within you, é.e., the reason (6 voice, Chrysostom), which apprehends divine 
truth, to become obscured, 7.e¢., it must be preserved in that state of normal 
action in which error and moral evil find no place. The obscuring’ of this 
faculty of thought and volition, by which the divine is perceived and 
morally assimilated, imparts a wrong tendency and complexion to the entire 
life of the individual man, Comp. Luther: ‘‘ This is a warrfing not to 
allow ourselves to be taken in by fair colors and outward appearance, with 
which avarice may trick itself out and conceal the knave.” The supposi- 
tion that ver. 22 f. originally stood immediately behind v. 16° is therefore 
without sufficient logical warrant, and Luke xi. 33-36 may be a later digest 
of similar import. Observe, moreover, that nothing is said here about the 
capability of the natural reason, purely as such, to apprehend the divine by 
its own unaided efforts ; for Jesus has in view those who are believers, whose 
vouc is already under the influence of the divine truth which He has revealed 
to them (Eph. i. 18; Rom. xxii. 2). However, the subjective meaning of 
doHaAuéc and @a¢ must be preserved intact, nor is ¢@¢ to be understood, with 
Hofmann,* as referring to the holy nature of God, which seeks to illuminate 
the hearts of men.—é Aiyvoe tov cdparde éorwv 6 d¢MaAudc| for without the eye 


1 Comp. Dem. 787. 13, 1268.12; Job xxiv. John ii. 15 ff. 
16; Ezek xii. 5. 3 Ewald, Jahrb. I. p. 129. 
Phil: iit 30's Col. iit 2 ff. 52 Cor. iv. 17+ 1 4 Schriftbew. II. 2, p. 320. 


154 THE GOSPEL OF MATTHEW. 


the body is in darkness ; the blind man is without light, which comes 
through the medium of the eye as though it were a lamp. The subject is 
not 6 d¢AaAudc (Luther, Bengel), but 6 Abyvoc rod oéu., to which corresponds 
To da¢ Td év coi, the subject in the application of the illustration. —dzAoiv¢ and 
xovypéc are mostly understood in the sense of : healthy (which many have 
defined more precisely as the opposite of double-sight), and damaged. But 
usage is in favor only of rovypé¢ being employed in this sense :’ rovypia o¢0aA- 
nav (also the German expression ‘‘ bjse Augen”), but not dxAovc, which means 
only integer in the moral sense of the word.? azAéryc¢ o¢0aAuov, as meaning the 
opposite of the dishonest, hypocritical cast of the eye. Consequently the 
above meaning is contrary to usage, and both words must be understood in 
their moral signification, so that Jesus has selected the predicates in His 
illustration in view of the state of things to which the illustration refers, and 
in which the darkness of the vovc is the result of the evil will resisting 
divine truth (Rom. i. 21). Therefore: if thine eye is honest, i.¢., if it 
honestly does its duty,—and : if it is good for nothing, i.e., if it maliciously 
refuses to perform its functions. — ¢wrewdr] is enlightened, so that it is clear 
round about him ; through the light which is perceived by the eye, no one 
of his members is in darkness. —¢i oiv, «.7.4.] Inference a minori ad majus. 
— 70 ac TO év oo'|7.e., the vov¢ especially as practical reason (Vernunft). The 
figurative designation’ is suggested by, and is correlative to, 6 Aiyvoe, ete., 
ver, 22.*—oxdroc] corresponds to rovypd¢ above, though denoting at the 
same time the effect of the evil condition. — 76 oxéro¢ récov] se., éori: how great 
then (since the worthlessness of the outward eye involves one in darkness) 
is the darkness, 76 oxétoc, in Which thou liest !_ But rd oxéroc, from being put 
first, isveryemphatic. Luther (following the ordinary reading of the Vulg. : 
ipsae tenebrae) and Calvin interpret incorrectly : how great will then be the 
darkness itself. Thine, in that case, is the condition in which there is no 
susceptibility for that divine truth which would enlighten and sanctify 
thee ; and this darkness, how great is it ! 

Ver. 24. But certainly do not suppose that ye can combine the eager pur- 
suit of wealth with striving after the kingdom of God ! no, aut, aut ! — dvoi] 
z.e. of course, two who are of opposite characters. —7 jap , . . Katagpovicer| 
he will either hate A and love B, or if not, vice versd, he will cleave to A 
and despise B. In the second clause évé¢ is without the article, because the 
idea is somewhat different from that in the first, namely : ‘‘ or he will cleave 
to one (not both) and despise the other concerned.” — puceiv and ayarav, like 
8 and 3N&, are used neither here nor anywhere else® ‘‘ with a less forcible 
meaning ” (de Wette, Tholuck, Bleek), so as to be equivalent to posthabere and 
praeferre. See, on the other hand, note on Rom. ix. 12, also Fritzsche on 


1See Kypke; comp. Plat. Hipp. min. p. zer, ad Plot. de pulcr. p. 361. 
374 D. 4 Comp. Euth. Zigabenus: 6 voids 6 
2Comp. Test. XIT. patr. p. 624. Swpnders cis TO hwtiCery kai odnyety THY Wuxyv, 
3 Philo, de cond. mund. I. p. 12: dmep vods ““The intellect (or reason) given for the en- 
év Wx, TOUTS oddadmos ev gwHmate, ‘* What- lightening and guiding the soul.” 
ever intelligence is in the soul, this the eye 5 Gen. xxix. 31; Mal. i.2,3; Lukexiv. 26, 
isin the body,” comp. Plat. Rep. vii. p.533 xvi. 13; John xii. 25; Rom. ix. 13. 
D: 70 THs Wux7s Ouma, Soph. p. 254 A. Creu- 


CHAP: VI., 25, 26. 155 


this passage. The two masters are conceived of as being of such a nature 
that the one is loved, the other hated, and vice versd,—and that in a decided 
manner, without any intermediate attitude of indifference. Luther : although 
the world can do it skilfully ; and asit is expressed in German, by ‘‘ carry- 
ing the tree on both shoulders.” In the second alternative, then, the xara- 
dpoverv Corresponds to the jceiv as being the effect of the hatred, while to 
the ayarav corresponds the avréyeofa as the effect of the love. — avféte-ar] 
he will hold to him, faithfully cleave to him.?— paywvac] Chaldee 83°20, 
consequently it should be spelt with only one y», and derived, not from 
D8, but from 12Y, so that its origin is to be traced to ]0UD, thesaurus 
(Gen. xliii. 23). It means riches, and, according to Augustine, is, in the 
Punic language, equivalent to Twerwm. In this instance it is personified 
owing to its connection with Jdoviebery, and from its antithesis to #ed : wealth 
conceived of as an idol (Plutus).*—Moreover, the idea implied in the dov- 
Aevev prevents the possible abuse of the saying. Luther says well: To 
have money and property is not sinful; but what is meant is, that thou 
shouldst not allow them to be thy master, rather that thou shouldst make 
them serve thee, and that thou shouldest be theiv master. Comp. Chrysostom, 
who quotes the examples of Abraham and Job. According to the axiom 
in the text, Christ justly (see on Luke xvi. 9, the note) requires wn faith ful- 
_ ness in regard to mammon. 

Ver. 25. Avda rovro| because this double service is impossible. — obyi 7 puyx7, 
x.7.4.].+—The care has been unwarrantably limited to anxious care, a mean- 
ing which is no less unjustifiable in Sir. xxxiv. 1 ; the context would be ex- 
pected to furnish such a limitation if it were intended. Jesus does not only 
forbid believers the 022d wepyvar,® the pepiyuviwar’ Exec Bapy,® or such like, 
but His desire is that—simply giving themselves to the wndivided (curae an- 
imum divorse trahunt, Terence) service of God, ver. 24, and trusting to Him 
with true singleness of heart—they should be superior to all care whatsoevcr 
as to food, drink, etc. (Phil. iv. 6); nevertheless, to create for themselves 
such cares would amount to little faith, ver. 30 ff., or a half-hearted faith as 
compared with their duty of entire resignation to that God whose part it is 
to provide for them. It is only by absolute and perfect faith that the moral 
height of aitapxera (Phil. iv. 11 ff.), and of exemption from earthly care, is 
to be attained. Comp. A. H. Franke’s example in founding the orphanage. 
—rti yy] Dative of immediate reference : in regard to the soul (as the 
principle of physical life, x. 39, xvi. 25, ii. 20), in so far as it is sustained by 
means of food and drink. In the case of pepiwvav the object (ri gdynre) is in 
the accusative (1 Cor. vii. 832-34, xii. 25 ; Phil. ii. 20, iv. 6). 

Ver. 26. Ta zeresva rod odpavov] DIIWT *\\P, the birds that fly in the air, in 


this wide, free height, are entirely resigned ! Genitive of locality, as in 


1 Plat. Rep. x. p 600D; Phil. p.58 E; Ax. 
p. 369 E; Dem. 290. 9; 1 Macc. xv. 84: Tit. 
i. 9. 

2 Gesenius,- Thes. I. p. 552, 

3 Buxtorf, Lex. Talm. p. 1217 f. 

4 Chrysostom : 6 toivuy ro peigov (life and 
body) Sods m&s 7d EAarrov (food and clothing) 


ov Swe, “He therefore who gave the 
greater (life and body), how is it that He 
will not give the less (food and clothing) ?” 
5 Xen. Cyr. viii. 7. 12, or the adAyeuwas pe- 
puzvas (Soph. Ant. 850). 
® Soph. Phil. 187. 


156 THE GOSPEL OF MATTHEW. 


ver. 28. This is manifest (in answer to Fritzsche : towards the heavens) from 
the juxtaposition of the words in Gen. i. 25, ii. 19; Ps. viii. 9, civ. 12.1— 
érz] equivalent to cic éxeivo 67, John ii, 18, ix. 17, xi. 51, xvi. 9 ; 2 Cor. i. 
18, xi. 10. To this belongs all that follows as far as aird. — waar. diadépere 
avtov] This naArov (magis) only strengthens the comparative force of diadépevy 
tivoc (to be superior to any one). Comp. on Phil. i. 23, and the paAdov that 
frequently accompanies zpoarpeiofa. 

Ver. 27. Ty gaxiav] the duration of life (Hammond, Wolf, Rosemiiller, 
Kuinoel, Schott, Kéuffer, Olshausen, de Wette, Baumgarten-Crusius, Tho- 
luck, Ewald, Bleek, Hilgenfeld). For, after the more comprehensive ex- 
hortation of ver. 25, Jesus passes in ver. 26 to the special subject of the 
support of life by means of rpod#, with which subject ver. 27 is intimately 
connected. Vv. 28-30 refer, in the first place, specially to the body itself, 
regarded by itself and as an outward object. The duration of life determined 
by God is set forth under the figure of a definite lineal measure.? In opposition 
to this, the only true connection, others (Euth. Zigabenus, Erasmus, Luther, 
Maldonatus, Jansen, Bengel, Fritzsche), following the Vulgate and Chrys- 
ostom, interpret : the height of the body, the stature, Luke xix. 3, li. 52. 
But what an absurd disproportion would there be in swch a relation in rep- 
resenting a very trifling addition (Luke xii. 26) by z7ywv! For rpyve, 
M28, is equivalent to the whole length of the lower part of the arm, two 
spans or six handbreadths, Béckh,* who thinks, however, without any rea- 
son, that the sacred ell (seven handbreadths) is meant. 

Ver. 28. Kai wepi évdiu. | the new object of care placed first in the sentence. 
— katayddere consider, observe : occurring nowhere else in the New Testament, 
frequent in Greek writers, Gen. xxiv. 21, xxxiv. 1; Job xxxv. 5. — xpivov, 
{Waw, lilies generally, various kinds of which grow vild in the East, without 
cultivation by human hands (rod dypov). There is no reason to think merely 
of the (flower) emperor’s crown (Kuinoel), or to suppose that anemones are 
intended (Furer in Schenkel’s Bibellex.); the latter are called dveyovac in 
Greek. — réc] relatively : how, 7.¢., with what grace and beauty, they grow 
up! To take ré¢ avé. interrogatively (Palairetus, Fritzsche), so that od xor., 
etc., would form the answer, is not so simple, nor is it in keeping with the 
parallel in ver. 26. They toil not, neither (specially) do they spin, to provide 
their raiment. The plurals (aizdvovow, etc., see the critical remarks) de- 
scribe the lilies, not en masse, but singly,* and indeed as though they were 
actual living persons. * 

Ver. 29. 'Ev racy rH d6€n aitow] Not even (oidé) Solomon when he appeared 
in all his glory, not merely in his royal robes (Kuinoel); it is in xepieBddero 


1Comp. Hom. JZ. xvii. p. 675: trovpaviwy 2 Comp. Ps. xxxix. 6; Mimnermus in Sto- 
metenvov. On the saying itself, comp. baeus, 98. 13. 
Kiddushin, s. fin.: “ Vidistine unquam 3 Béckh, Metrol. Unters. p. 210 ff. Fenne- 
bruta aut volatilia, quibus esset aliqua berg, vb. ad. Liingen-, Feld- u. Wegemaasse d. 
officina? et tamen illa nutriuntur absque Volk. d. Alterth. 1859. 
anxietate,” ‘‘Have you ever seen brute 4 Kiihner, ad Xen. Mem. iv. 3. 12, ad Anabd. 
or winged creatures who had any work- ieee 
shop? and yet these are supported without 5 Kriiger on Thue. i. 58. 1. Comp. in 


anxiety.” general, Schoemann, ad Isaewm ix. 8. 


CHAP. VI., 30-33. 157 


that the special part of the whole défa is first mentioned. On the défa of 
Solomon, see 2 Chron. ix. 15 ff.—airot, not airov. Observe further the é ; 
his glorious apparel was not equal to any one of these. 

Ver. 30. Tov yéprov tov aypov] Placed first for sake of emphasis ; 6 yéproc, 
however, is simply the grass, so that Jesus mentions the genus under which 
the lilies (which grow among the grass) are included, and that intentionally 
with a view to point them out as insignificant ; 1 Cor. iii. 12 ; 1 Pet. i. 24. 
—onpuepov bvta] which to-day exists.— eic KAiB. Badrrdu. | expresses what is done 
to-morrow, hence the present.’ Dried grass with its flower-stalks and such 
like was also used for the purpose of heating baking ovens.* — 7oAA6 yaa. | 
expressing certainty. 

Ver. 32. The second yap does not append another reason co-ordinate with 
the first, but after the injunction contained in ver. 31 has been justified by 
the reference to the heathen (to whom they are not to compare themselves), 
this same injunction is provided with an explanation of an encouraging 
nature, so that the first ydp is logical, the second explanatory, as frequently in 
classical writers.? The referring of the second ydp to something to be sup- 
plied after ra vy, such as ‘‘ who know nothing ef God” (Tholuck), is arbi- 
trary. — olde is emphatic ; is certainly Anown to your Father, and so on. — 
érc] that, not 6, rc (Paulus: that, which ; Fritzsche : quatenus). 

Ver. 33. Zyreite dé] now states what they ought to do, instead of indulg- 
ing that care forbidden in ver. 31. —xpérov] in the jirst place, before you 
strive after anything else ; your jirst striving. In that case a second is, of 
course, unnecessary, because their food, their drink, and their raiment 
mpooreOjcetar. But in the rpérov the subordinate striving after something is 
not even ‘‘ darkly” sanctioned (de Wette) ; on the contrary, and notwith- 
standing the zpérov, this striving is excluded as niuch by ver. 32as by cai... 
rpoote?. Accordingly, that jirst striving is the only one.—The simple ¢yreire 
is distinguished from érigfyr. not in respect of degree, but only in such a way 
that the latter points out the direction of the striving. Hence éri¢yreiv éxi 
twa, 2 Sam, iii. 8.4 —rv Baowd. Kat tH dixatocbvyv airov] (see the critical re- 
marks) where the airoi belonging to both substantives refers, according to 
ver. 32, to God, and is meant to convey the ideathat what is to form the 
object and aim of our striving is the Messianic kingdom, the becoming par- 
takers in it, the being admitted into it, and the moral righteousness which 
God imparts to the believer to assist him to attain the kingdom. — ratra 
mdavra] See vv. 31, 82. The distinction between ratra ravta and rdvra 
tavra lies merely in this, that in the former it is the demonstrative idea on 
which the emphasis is placed, whereas in the latter it is the idea of univer- 
sality that is so.° — xpooreOjcerar| will be added, namely, to the moral result 
of your striving. Comp. the saying of Christ handed down by Clement, 


1 Comp. Buttmann, neut. Gr. p. 178 [E. T. scher, ad Hieron. 11. 6. 

206]. 4 Comp. note on Rom. xi. 7; Phil. iv. 7. 

2 xA(Bavor, or Attic xpiBavor, see Lobeck, 5 See Winer, p. 510 [E. T. 686]. Comp. 
ad Phryn. p.179. Comp. remark on iii. 12; Lobeck, ad Aj. 1023; Saupp, ad Hipparch. 
Harmar, Beobacht. vib. d. Orient, I. p. 239 f. VL. 5. 

8 Kiihner, ad Xen. Anab. y. 6. 6. Frot- 


158 THE GOSPEL OF MATTHEW. 
Origen, and Eusebius,’ which differs from our passage in the generality of its 
terms, and in having aireire. 

Ver. 34. Concluding saying of this section—practical, fresh, bold, and 
taken from the life.—Fritzsche arranges the words thus : 7 yap aipcov pepip- 
vice. Ta éavtgc apkerov tH nuépa, 7 Kaxia abtac. He takes 7 xax. att7e as in 
apposition with ra éavr#e ; which is forced in itself, and precluded by the 
reading éavrqjc¢ without ra. If this reading be adopted, the meaning will be 
as follows : Therefore (inference from all that has been said from ver, 25 
onwards) have no care about to-morrow ; for to-morrow will care for itself—will 
have itself as the object of its care, which you ought not, to-day, to take 
away from to-morrow (7 aijprov is personified). The day, i.e., every day,? as it 
comes round, has enough (does not need to have anything more added, as 
would be the case if we cared for to-morrow) in its own evil, z.e., in its evil 
nature, as represented by dangers, sorrows, and soon. Luther well ob- 
serves : Why wilt thou be concerned beyond to-day, and take upon thyself 
the misfortunes of two days? Abide by that which to-day lays upon thee : 
to-morrow the day will bring thee something else.* In classical writers, 
commonly kaxéry¢ 3* uepyuvav does not occur elsewhere with the genitive,. but, 
like opovrifew tivoc, may be connected with it.5 


Notes By AMERICAN EDIror. 


We 


The rendering of émoto.ov is so difficult that Tholuck quotes a scholar as 
saying that it is the ‘‘rack of theologians and grammarians.” The history of 
the ancient and modern interpretations of the word is exhibited by Tholuck in 
his commentary on the Sermon on the Mount (Clark’s Bib. Cab. v. 2, pp. 174- 
186). Itis also given in outline from Tholuck by Alford in his Commentary 
on the Gospels, pp. 53, 54. On the question whether ézvovoroc is derived from 
elvat (to be) or iévac (to go) with the preposition, Cremer controverts the posi- 
tion of Meyer. ‘‘ Meyer,” he says, ‘‘ maintains this view (namely, that érzodovo¢ 
is derived from éxieva.—to be coming on), notwithstanding its incompatibility 
with Matt. vi. 34, and he does so professedly in keeping with a strictly critical 
canon, the application of which in exegesis is false almost as often as itis put 
to the test by him and others proclivi scriptioni praestat ardua. [The difficult is 
to be preferred to the easy wording]. Against this view, moreover, is Ex. 
xvi. 14-16, which may be taken as, so to speak, an authentic interpretation of 


laiteite Ta eydda, kai Ta wikpa bmiv mpoore- Amosiii. 7; Sir. xix.6; 2 Mace. iv. 47. 


ygETAL’ Kal aitelTe Ta EmOUparLa, Kal Ta emlyera 
mpootedyoetac vucv, ‘Ask the great things, 
» and the small will be added to you; ask 
also the heavenly things, and the earthly 
will be added to you” (Fabricius, Cod. 
Apocr. i. p. 829). 
2? Bernhardy, p. 315. 
3 Comp. on xaxia ( hrysostom: 
mwpta), Luke xvi. 25; Eccles. vii. 15, xii. 1; 


TaXrat- 


4 Hom. J. xi. 382; Od. v. 290; Herod. ii. 
128; Soph. #7. 228. Comp. however, also 
kaxia, Thucyd. iii. 58.1; Plato, Legg. vii. p. 
814 A. 

5 Bernhardy, p. 176 f.; Kritiger, § 47. 11; 
Kiihner, TV. 1, p. 825. Onthe well-known 
neuter usage, apxetor, sufficient, see Kiihner, 
Ii. 1, p. 52 £. 


NOTES. 159 


this petition. Comparatively few of the Greek Fathers, in particular not 
Origen, espouse this derivation ; not only is the tenor of the context against it, 
but the fact also that there is not a derivative single ending in tovo.og to be found 
as formed from iéva: and its compounds. Far better is it to regard the word 
as one of that not uncommon class of adjectives which have been formed from 
elrat, OY ovaia —évovoroc, EFovoL0C, Ofmoovatoc, éTEpovoLoc, ToAvOtcLoc, bmesodboLoc, 
avetovo.oc, TepLotozoc.”’ 

The difficulty, with Meyer’s derivation of éovovoc, in disposing of o7uepor, 
is serious and has been noticed by expositors. For the reasoning by which 
Cremer aims to show that ézzotctoc may be derived from the substantive ovoia, 
and also that this substantive may be taken to mean ‘‘ existence,’’ see his Lex- 
icon, Eng. ed. pp. 289-241. ’Emvovovoc thus derived will mean that belongs to 
existence ; Tholuck renders it ‘“‘that serves for our being or subsistence ;’’ 
Alford, required for our subsistence, proper for our subsistence, and adds, ‘thus 
only o7juepov has its proper meaning.” 

Tholuck’s balancing of probabilities in favor of each derivation of érotcvoc 
touches neatly the difficulty on either side. ‘‘ Far stronger than the objection 
which might be raised to the derivation from ovoia founded on the formation of 
the word, is that which stands against the derivation from érévac founded upon 
the meaning. The readiest way to defend even that would be to say, that 
Christ had indeed forbidden indulging care for the morrow, but it is just the 
person who prays who does not do so. Still it might be here replied, as is done 
by Augustine, that a prayer for anything which the person has not seriously at 
heart is in reality no genuine prayer. Whoever then at his prayers actually 
feels in his heart the inclination to be always looking beyond the boundaries 
of the present day, of that man it cannot be said with truth that he is in the 
frame of mind which becomes a Christian.’’! 


Viele 


It remains now to consider Dr. Meyer’s objection to the historicity of 
Matthew’s version of the Lord’s Prayer and its occasion. His positions are (1) 
that if Luke’s account of the occasion of teaching the prayer (in chap. xi. 1) 
is correct, then Matthew’s is not; if Matthew’s is correct, then Luke’s is not. 
He decides for the accuracy of Luke’s report as against Matthew’s. (2) That 
the brevity of Luke’s version tells in favor of its historical accuracy, while the 
author of our Matthew finds his justification for placing it just where he has 
from its relevancy to the line of thought immediately preceding. That is to say, 
to use Dr. Meyer's language, ‘‘he here takes occasion also to put this existing 
model prayer into our Lord’s mouth!” But as the questioner, according to 
Luke xi. 1, is “ta certain one” of the disciples, is it inconceivable that this 
one may not have heard, or heard of the prayer as taught in Christ’s earlier 
ministry, and may have had a condensed repetition of the fuller form for an 
answer? It has been conjectured that he may have been one of the Seventy ; 
but he may have been entirely outside both of the circle of the Twelve and the 
larger circle of the Seventy. Tholuck asks ‘‘ if there is anything at all vio- 
lent, anything forced, in the supposition that the prayer set forth by Jesus in 


1 Exposition of Sermon on the Mount, v. ii, p. 182. 


160 THE GOSPEL OF MATTHEW. * 


the presence of the people, as an example of how we are to avoid battology 
(vain repetition) in praying, and which in the context before us is so entirely 
destitute of the character of a formula, was not looked on by the disciples as a 
formula at all, or as being intended for their use, and consequently that, un- 
mindful of this type of a true prayer, they at a later period solicited one par- 
ticularly destined for themselves? Were they not in other cases also uncertain 
whether what the Lord said before the people had a special application to 
them? See Luke xii. 41. And supposing it were to be considered very unlikely 
that all of them should labor under a mistake, still might not that be the case 
with one or more? Should any, however, object that the Lord must have inti- 
mated by some word or other that they had only to call to mind the prayer 
which, at a former period, He had already given them, would this be the sote 
instance in which, of what was spoken by Christ, the essential part alone has 
been communicated ??”! 

Here, as usual, the conjectures of the critics which are supported by no docu- 
mentary authority neutralize each other. Dr. Meyer holds that the ‘‘ brevity of 
Luke’s version as compared with the fulness of that of Matthew tells in favor 
of Luke’s originality ;’ Olshausen, that the recension of Matthew should there- 
fore be considered as the original form of the prayer, for what is peculiar to 
him cannot possibly be a mere amplification originating in later traditions ; that 
of Luke, on the other hand, should be viewed as an abbreviated form, inasmuch 
as he is found dealing in a similar way with many of those passages which 
Matthew included in the Sermon on the Mount.? On the whole, there is no 
reason for maintaining Matthew’s version to be a legendary formation, and there 
is reasonableness in supposing that there could have been an occasion when 
it was entirely appropriate for Christ to repeat the prayer in a condensed form. 


1 Sermon on the Mount, Clark’s ed., vol. ii. pp. 134, 135. 

2 Commentary on the Gospels, vol. ii. p. 310. Clark’s edition. For text of Luke’s version 
of the Lord’s prayer, see the Revisers’ text of the New Testament, published by Palmer, in 
Luke, chap. xi. 


CHAP, VII. 161 


CHAPTER VII. 


Ver. 2, eTpnf] In opposition to decisive testimony, Elz. has dvtietpy)., 
from Luke vi. 38.—Ver. 4. For azé, Lachm. Tisch. 8 read éx, found only in B. 
8, Curss. With é«3aAw and ver. 5 before them, the copyists involuntarily 
wrote the éx. — Ver. 6. Lachm. and Tisch. have the future katata77jcovoly, ac- 
cording to BC L X, 33. With such important testimony in its favor, it is to 
be preferred to the generally received aor. conj.— Ver. 9. The omission of 
éorvv in B* L, Curss. and several versions (Lachm.: 7 7vc), as well as the read- 
ing 6v aityoss Which follows (Lachm. Tisch. 8), is meant to help out the con- 
struction. — Ver. 10. kai édv iyfdv airjoy] Lachm. Tisch. 8; } Kai iyOdv aitgoet, 
asin BC WN, Curss. Verss., after Luke xi. 11. — Ver. 13. 7 mvAn] is deleted by 
Lachm. and bracketed by Tisch. 8, but only, however, after 8 Codd. of the It. 
and Fathers (Clem. Or. Cypr. Hilar. Lucif.). From its resemblance to rAareia 
immediately preceding, this word was very liable to be omitted. The author- 
ity for its omission in ver. 14 is decidedly weaker (8 being in this case against 
it). Here also it is bracketed by Lachm. and Tisch. 8. — Ver. 14. ri] Elz. and 
Tisch., with a decided preponderance of testimony against them, prefer 6rz, 
which owed its origin to 67: rAareia, etc., ver. 13, the meaning of r/ not being 
understood. — Ver. 16. oragvaqv] Schulz, Lachm. Tisch. 8 have oragvadc, ac- 
cording to B 8 and several Curss. and Verss. The plural originated in conse- 
quence of ovAdéy. and cixca.— Ver. 18. Tisch. 8 has éveyxeiv for roveiy in both 
instances, against decisive testimony. After dv Lachm. has ody in brackets 
(C** L Z, Curss. Verss). An interpolation for the sake of connection, rendered 
in Brix. by enim, and in Germ. 2 by aulem. — Ver. 21. After év (Lachm. Tisch. 
8: év roic, according to B Z §&) oipavoic, Fritzsche, following Bengel, inserts oito¢ 
elaedevoerat ei¢ THY Bac. TOV odpaver, but on far too slender authority. A sup- 
plementary gloss. — Ver. 24. duowiow aitév] B Z 8, Curss. Verss. and several 
Fathers have dow $joerTa. Derived from ver. 26 for the sake of the nominat. 
mac. Adopted by Lachm. and Tisch. 8. — Ver. 28. cuveréAecev] Lachm. Tisch. 
read éréAecev, according to B C Z? T &, Curss. Or. Chrys. But how easily 
might the syllable ovy drop out between OTE ETE! especially as ovvredeiv 
occurs nowhere else in Matth. — Ver. 29. Lachm. inserts aitav Kai oi Papicaios 
after ypaupareic, on authorities of unequal value. The evidence is stronger in 
favor of airov, which, moreover, is confirmed by 8. Tisch. has adopted 
merely airov after ypaupareic, in which, however, he is right ; because, whilst 
there was no reason for adding airéy, the omission of it was natural in itself, 
and suggested by Mark. i. 22. 


Jesus warns (1) against judging, vv. 1-6 ; urges (2) to prayer, vv. 7-11 ; 
then (3) prepares for the transition, ver. 12, to the exhortation to enter the 
Messianic kingdom through the strait gate, vv. 13, 14 ; warns (4) against 
false prophets, vv. 15-23 ; and concludes with the powerful passage regard- 
ing the wise and the foolish man, vv. 24-27. 


162 THE GOSPEL OF MATTHEW. 

Ver. 1. Without any intermediate connection, the discourse passes on to 
a new subject. Comp. v. 17, vi. 1. — pu) Kpivere] kpivery means nothing more 
than to judge, and the context alone will decide when it is used in the sense 
of a condemnatory judgment, as in Rom. ii. 1, xiv. 4 ; Gal. v. 10 ; Heb. x. 
30 (frequently in John). In this respect it resembles the Heb. US¥. But 
in this instance it is proved by ver. 2 and vv. 3-5 that xpivew is not to be ex- 
plained as synonymous with xaraxpiverv.! Nor is this required, but, on the 
contrary, plainly forbidden, by Luke vi. 37, for there the difference between 
xpivew and KaradicdCew is of the nature of a climax, the latter being the result 
of the former. Accordingly, the correct interpretation is this : Do not sit in 
judgment upon others ; do not set yourselves up as judges of their faults 
(ver. 3), meaning thereby an officious and self-righteous behavior (the 
opposite of that prescribed in Gal. vi. 1-5), that ye may not become obnoxious 
to judgment, i.e., that ye may not be subjected to the divine, the Messianic, 
judgment ; that instead of obtaining mercy and the forgiveness of your sins 
in that judgment, you may not draw down upon yourselves that judicial 
sentence (which, according to v. 7, vi. 15, is averted by cherishing a for- 
giving spirit). To refer «p:@jre to our being judged by others (Erasmus, 
Calvin, Kuinoel, Fritzsche), and not, with Chrysostom, to the future judg- 
ment, is wrong ; because ver. 2, if referred to the Nemesis of the existing 
order of things, would not be altogether true ; and further, because, through- 
out His address, Jesus treats the idea of retribution from the Messianic point 
of view.” Of course it is unnecessary to say that, in forbidding judging, 
Christ is not speaking ‘‘ de ministeriis vel officiis divinitus ordinatis, sed de 
judiciis, quae fiunt extra sew praeter vocationes et gubernationes divinas,”’ ‘‘ con- 
cerning ministry or duties divinely appointed, but concerning judgments 
which are made outside of or beyond divine callings and leadings,’” Melanch- 
thon. Nor does he forbid the moral judging of others in general, which is 
inseparable from truth and love, and is at the same time a necessary element 
in the duty of brotherly vovfereiv.§ 

Ver. 2. ’Ev| Instrumental repetition of the same thought.* The second é» 
is also instrumental, by means of, and pérpov is to be understood as a meas- 
ure of capacity (Luke vi. 38). 

Ver. 3. Képgoc, a minute fragment of twig, wood, or straw, which, in 
entering the eye,° becomes the figurative representation of a slight moral 
fault ; doxéc, again, is the figure by which a heinouws’* fault is denoted." 


17In answer to Theophylact, Euth. Ziga- 
benus, Kuinoel, and Olshausen. 

AVe 112 AO) 20 ee 2120 f.. yas dG, 14 te. 
18, 20; 33, vil. 18, 19, 21, 23, 24 ff. 

3“ Canis pro cane et porcus pro porco est 
habendus,”’ Bengel. 

4 Sota, ed. Wagenseil, p. 52. 
Schoettgen, p. 78. 

5 See Wetstein. 


ing the faults of others, is foreign to the con- 
text. Luther correctly observes: ‘‘ That 
He may the more earnestly warn us, He 
takes a rough simile, and paints the thing 
before our eyes, pronouncing some such 
opinion as this,—that every one who judges 
his neighbor has a huge beam in his eye, 
while he who is judged has only a tiny chip, 
(and) that he is ten times more deserving of 


Comp. 


6 The view of Theophylact, Baumgarten- 
Crusius, and several others, that the beam 
in a man’s own eye is calculated to make 
him conscious of his incapacity for recogniz- 


judgment and condemnation for having 
condemned others.”’ 

7™Comp. Lightfoot p. 307; Buxtorf, Lex 
Talm. p. 2080. 


CHAP. VII., 4-6. 163 


Tholuck prefers to find the point of comparison in the pain caused by the 
splinter or beam in the eye. This is inadmissible, for otherwise it could — 
not be said, in reference to the beam in the eye, ov karavoeic, t.e., thou perceivest 
not, art not aware. It is the magnitude of his own moral defects that the 
self-righteous man fails to discover. Thy brother, as in v. 22. Notice, fur- 
ther, the arrangement of words so appropriate to the sense in the second 
clause. 

Vv. 4, 5. Or how will it be morally possible for thee to say? and so on. 
The rac, like ri (cur), ver. 3, expresses what is morally absurd.* — xa? idod, 
«.7.4.| The more emphatic from there being no éor ; and lo, the beam in 
thine eye ! — éxBad] Conjunct. hortatory, and in the present instance, in 
the sense of calling upon oneself.? — broxpiza] Hypocrite, who pretendest to 
be free from faults. The attribute is here taken from his demeanor as seen 
from its objective side, while the subjective side, which here presents itself as 
hypocrisy, is the conceit of self-delusion. — d:aBdé perc] neither imperative nor 
permissive (thou mayest see), but future. The result of self-amendment 
will be the earnest effort to help others to amendment. Observe the com- 
pound (correlative of the simple verb, ver. 3) intenta acie spectabis.* 

Ver. 6. The endeavor to correct the faults of others must be confined 
within its proper limits, and not allowed to become a casting of holy things 
to the dogs. As isusual, however, in the case of apophthegms, this prog- 
ress in the thought is not expressed by a particle (4444). To abandon the 
idea of connection (Maldonatus, de Wette, Tholuck), or to suppose (Kuinoel, 
Neander, Bleek ; Weiss doubtful) that vv. 6-11, at least ver. 6, do not 
belong to this passage, is scarcely warranted.—r6 ayov]| the holy, not the 
holy flesh, wIp wa, Jer. xi. 15, Hagg. ii. 12, the flesh of sacrifices (v. d. 
Hardt, Paulus, Tholuck), which, besides, would require to be more precisely 
designated, otherwise there would be just as much reason to suppose that the 
holy bread, WIP on> (1 Sam. xxi. 5), or any other meat-offering (Lev. xxii. 
2), was meant. Christ has in view the holy in general, figuratively designat- 
ing in the first clause only the persons, and then, in the second, the holy 
thing. What is meant by this, as also by rode papyapirac immediately after, is 
the holy, because divine, evangelic truth by which men are converted, and 
which, by rote wapyap. iuav, is described as something of the highest value, 
as the precious jewel which is entrusted to the disciples as its possessors.‘— 
Dogs and swine, these impure and thoroughly despised animals, represent those 
men who are hardened and altogether incapable of receiving evangelic truth, 
and to whom the holy is utterly foreign and distasteful. The parallelism 
ought to have precluded the explanation that by both animals two different 
classes of men are intended (the snappish, as in Acts xiii. 46 ; the filthy 
livers, Grotius).— whrote Katar., K.T.A., Kal otpadévrec, K.T.A.] applies to the 


1“ Est enim proprium stultitiae, aliorum p. 30. 


vitia cernere, oblivisci suorum,” Cie. Tusc. 3Comp. Plat. Phaed. p. 86 D; Arist. de 
iii. 30. 73. Som.38; Plut. Mor. p. 36 E. 
* Used also in the singular, see Kiihner, 4 or Arabian applications of this simile, 


TI. 1, p. 185 ; Nagelsbach on Ziad, p. 404, ed. comp. Gesenius in Rosenm. fep. I. p. 128. 
38; Bornemann, in d. Siichs. Stud. 1846, 


164 THE GOSPEL OF MATTHEW. 

swine, who are to be conceived of as wild animals, as may be seen from airotc 
and the whole similitude, so that, as the warning proceeds, the figure of the 
dogs passes out of view, though, as matter of course, it admits of a corre- 
sponding application.’ But this is no reason why the words should be re- 
ferred to both classes of animals, nor ‘why the trampling should be assigned 
to the swine and orpd¢. p7g. to the dogs.? For the future xaraz, (see the 
critical remarks), comp. note on Mark xiv. 2; Matt. xiii. 15. —éyv toic¢ 
rooiv avt.| instrumental. — orpagévrec] not : having changed to an attitude 
of open hostility (Chrysostom, Euth. Zigabenus), or to savagery (Loesner), 
but manifestly, having turned round upon you from the pearls, which they 
have mistaken for food, and which, in their rage, they have trampled under 
their feet ; the meaning of which is, lest such men profane divine truth (by 
blasphemy, mockery, calumny), and vent upon you their malicious feeling to- 
wards the gospel. In how many ways must the apostles have experienced 
this in their own case ; for, their preaching being addressed to all, they 
would naturally, as a rule, have to see its effect on those who heard it before 
they could know who were ‘‘ dogs and swine,” so as then to entice them no 
Surther with the offer of what is holy, but to shake off the dust, and so on. 
But the men here in view were to be found among Jews and Gentiles. It is 
foreign to the present passage (not so xv. 26) to suppose that only the 
Gentiles as such are referred to (K6stlin, Hilgenfeld). 

Vv. 7-9. The new passage concerning prayer begins, without any trace of 
connection with what goes before. Comp. note on ver. 1. It is otherwise 
in Luke xi. 9, which, however, does not affect Matthew’s originality (in 
answer to Holtzmann, Weiss, Weizsiicker), nor does it warrant the opinion 
that some connecting terms have been omitted. Influenced by a later tra- 
dition, Luke has given the sayings in a connection of his own, and one that, 
so far as can be discovered, has no claim to be preferred to that of Matthew. 
—airteite, Cnreite, kpovere] Climax depicting the rising of the prayer into 
intense fervor, that ‘‘he may thereby urge us all the more powerfully to 
prayer” (Luther). — Ver. 8. The obvious limitation to this promise is suffi- 
ciently indicated by aya#4 in ver. 11 (1 John v. 14), just as the childlike, 
therefore believing, disposition of the petitioner is presupposed * in vv. 9-11.— 
Ver. 9. 7] ov, if that were not the case, then, in the analogous human rela- 
tion must, and so on.—vri¢ éorw. . . uy Aiov éxid. ait@] Dropping of the 
interrogative construction with which the sentence had begun, and transi- 
tion to another. A similar change in Luke xi. 11.‘ This irregularity is 
occasioned by the intervening clause, quem si filius poposcerit panem. The 
sentence is so constructed that it should have run thus : % ri¢ éoti & stuov 
avOpwroc, bv éav aitgon ;> but after the relative clause the construction with 


1 Pricaeus, Maldonatus, Tholuck. 

2 Theophylact, Hammond, Calovius, Wolf, 
Kuinoel. 

3The specific determination of prayer 
that will certainly be heard, as prayer 
offered in the name of Jesus (John Xiv.-Xvi.), 
was reserved for a further stage of develop- 
ment. Comp. on vi. 18, note 2. It is not the 


divine relation to men in general (Baur), but 
to His own believing ones, that Jesus has in 
view. Comp. Weiss, bibl. Theol. p. 67 f., ed. 2. 

4See Fritzsche, Conject. p. 34 ff.; Butt- 
mann, newt. Gr. p. 243 f. [E. T. 284]. 

5 i.€. 6s, €av avdrov aitjon, see Kiihner, II. 2, 
DP. 913), 0 vids adrovd dprov, Aidov emidacer a’Ta 
(without 7). 


CHAP, Vik. 14. 22. 165 
uh Supersedes that at the beginning of the sentence. — 7 Aifov eid. aita] 
surely he will not give him a stone? With regard to the things compared, 
notice the resemblance between the piece of bread and a stone, and between 
a fish and a serpent ; and on the other hand, the contrast with regard to the 
persons; && ipav avOpwpoc, and 6 raryp bu. 6 év T. obpavoic. 

Ver. 11. Tlovypoi bvrec] although ye, as compared with God, are morally 
evil. Comp. xix. 17. Even Kuinoel has given up the false rendering, nig- 
gardly (in conformity with Prov. xxiii. 6 ; Sir. xiv. 5). — oidare didévac] not 
soletis dare (Maldonatus, Wetstein, Kuinoel), but ye know, understand, how 
to give (1 Tim. iii. 5, and see note on Phil. iv. 12), not as referring, how- 
ever, to the disposition (de Wette, Fritzsche), which in so doing is rather 
presupposed, but appropriately pointing to the thoughtful nature of paternal 
love, which, in spite of the zovypia, understands how to render possible the 
giving of good gifts to children. — déuata ayaba) wholesome gifts, in contrast to 
the stone and the serpent. For the second dyad, Luke xi. 13 has rveiua 
aywv —a later substitution of the particular for the general. For the infer- 
ence a@ minori ad majus, comp. Isa. xlix. 15. 

Ver. 12. At this point Jesus takes a retrospective glance at all that He 
has been saying since v. 17,—-beginning with Moses and the prophets,— 
concerning our duty to our neighbor, but introducing, indeed, many other 
instructions and exhortations. But putting out of view such matters as 
are foreign to His discourse, He now recapitulates all that has been said on 
the duties we owe to our neighbor, so that oiv points back to v.17. The 
correctness of this view is evident from the following : oiro¢ yap éorw 6 vduoc, 
etc., from which it further appears that ov does not merely refer back to v. 
1-5 (Kuinoel, Neander, Baumgarten-Crusius). As Luther well observes : 
‘‘ With those words He concludes the instructions contained in those three 
chapters, and gathers them all into one little bundle.” Fritzsche is some- 
what illogical when he says that oiv generalizes the conclusion from oidare, 
déuata.. . Téxvore tuov, Which proposition, however, was a mere lemma. 
Ewald thinks that ver. 12 is here in its wrong place, that its original posi- 
tion was somewhere before ayarare, v. 44, and might still be repeated after 
v. 48 ; according to Bleek and Holtzmann, founding on Luke vi. 31, its 
original position was after v. 42. But it is precisely its significant position 
asa concluding sentence, along with its reference to the law and the proph- 
ets, that Luke has taken away from it. Comp. Weiss. On é/ew iva, see 
note on Luke vi. 31. —oirw| not for ravra, as if the matter were merged in 
the manner (de Wette), but in such a manner, in this way.corresponding, 
that is, to this your @é/ecv.—The truth of this Christian maxim lies in this, 
that the words éca dv OéAnre, etc., as spoken by Jesus, and, on the ground of 
His fulfilment of the law (oiv), which presupposes faith in Him, can only 


1 Chrysostom appropriately says: radra 8é 
EAeyev ov SiaBadAwy thy avipwrivnv pio, ovdé 
kakiCwy To yevos, GAAG mpods avTidtacToAny TIS 
ayatorntos THs avtov (Of God) thy didocropyiav 
Thy Tatpixnyv tovynpiav Kadov [He said this 
not as calumniating human nature, or re- 
proaching the race, but for distinction of 


the goodness of God, calling their fatherly 
love evil]. It is not original sin, but 
the historical manifestation of the sin of 
all men, which is spoken of, of which, how- 
ever, original sin is the internal, natural 
root. Comp. xv. 19; John iii. 6. 


166 THE GOSPEL OF MATTHEW. 


mean a willing of a truly moral kind, and not that of a self-seeking nature, 
such as the desire for flattery. — oiroc, etc. | for this is the sum of moral duty, 
and so on.’ But being all of a negative character, like Tob. iv. 15, they are 
essentially different from the present passage. For coincidences of a more 
meagre kind from Greek writers, see Spiess, Logos Spermat. p. 24. 

Ver. 13. There now follow some additional concluding exhortations and 
warnings, which in Luke are partly omitted, partly scattered and displaced 
(in answer to Calvin, Keim) and abridged. With ver. 13 comp. Luke xiii. 
24. The thought is one of the fundamental thoughts of the Sermon on the 
Mount. — cicé26ere] where the entering leads to is not stated till ver. 14. — 
67] assigning the reason e contrario. — sic tiv atédeay] i.e., to eternal death, 
as being the punishment of such as are condemned in the Messianic judg- 
ment.” The opposite is fa7, the eternal life of felicity in the kingdom of 
the Messiah. Wide gate and broad way ; figures representing the pleasures 
and excesses of sin and wickedness. Strait gate and narrow way ; repre- 
senting, on the other hand, the effort and self-denial which Christian duty 
imposes. It is only when regenerated that a man comes first to experience 
the lightness of the yoke (xi. 29), and of the commandments (1 John v. 38), 
and all the more the further progress he makes in the love of Christ (John 
xiv. 15 ff.) — 7 aydr. sic r. awdd.] refers equally to 7 wiAy,* to which again 
the dv’ aiz7e belongs. There is a similar construction in v. 14, where airj 
in like manner refers to 7iA7. 

Vy. 14, 15. Ti] quam (Vulg.): how strait is the gate ! as conforming to 
the Sept., which renders 1) in this sense by 7i,* though not good Greek. 
The rendering why, as though there were something sorrowful in the ques- 
tion (Fritzsche), is unsuited to the whole tone of the discourse. — etpicxovrec] 
The strait gate requires to be sought, so far is it from being readily seen, or 
from obtruding itself upon the attention.—By, most, the gate is erroneously 
conceived to be at the end of the way ; with Bengel, Schegg, and Lange, it 
is to be understood as at the beginning of it, as opening into it, for which 
reason, in vv. 13, 14, the gate is mentioned before the way. The entering 
by the strait gate is therefore the entering into life (into the Messiah’s king- 
dom), but still brought about through following the narrow way, which is 
reached by means of the strait gate. — rpooéyere dé] But in order to find it, 
beware, and so on. — The wevdorpogyra: are not the Pharisees (Tholuck), nor 
Jews, pretending to be divine messengers (Bleek), nor people like Judas the 
Galilean (Acts v. 37, de Wette), but false Christian teachers without a 
divine call (xxiv. 11, 24), as is evident from vy. 21-23.5 A warning in view 
of coming events, and such as Jesus knew His followers would soon be need- 
ing. — év évdiuact rpoBar| dressed in sheep's clothing. Here we are not to 
think of literal sheep skins (Grotius, Kuinoel), seeing that these were worn 


1 For parallels from profane writers, see 2 Phil. i. 28; Heb. x. 39 ; 2 Pet. ili. 7, 16. 
Wetstein ; Bab. Schabb. f. 31. 1: ‘ Quod 3 Kiihner, II. 1, p. 70 f. 
tibi ipsi odiosum est, proximo ne facias; 42 Sam. vi. 20; Cant. vii. 6; Luke xii. 49. 
nam haec est tota lex,” ‘‘ What is hateful 5 Comp. Chrysostom, Calvin, Grotius, 
to you yourself, do not do to your neigh- Calovius. 


bor; for this is the whole law.” 


CHAP. VII., 16-23. 167 
by others, and were not specially the prophets’ dress (comp. iii. 4), but as 
emblematic of the outward appearance of innocence and gentleness, not of the ex- 
ternal profession of a member of the Christian church,’ which would have 
been admissible only if the context had spoken of the church in the light of 
a flock, in which case the false prophets would have been far more appropri- 
ately represented as in shepherds’ clothing.” — éowev| 7.e., according to the 
figure ; under the sheep’s clothing ; in reality ; in their true inner nature, 
which is disguised by hypocrisy.*® 

Vv. 16-18. Excyvéc.] Ye will know them, not ye should (Luther). — The 
«aproi are the results of principles, as seen in the whole behavior, the works 
(vv. 21, 238, xii. 33), not the doctrines (Jerome, Calvin, Calovius). — dxav@az 
x. tpiBoao.] Thorns and thistles occur together in a corresponding figurative 
sense in Heb. vi. 8. —oirw] application of those images to the false proph- 
ets, in such a way, however, that the latter, in keeping with azo 7. xapz. 
avt. (comp. ver. 20), just before, appear again as trees. — A dévdpov ayalér is, 
as contrasted with the cazpév, a sound, healthy tree ; fora carpéy is not some 
tree of an inferior species, but one whose organism is decaying with age, 
etc., rotten, the caxpéry¢ of which,* owing to a defective and corrupted state 
of the sap, admits of nothing in the way of fruit but what is bad, small, and 
useless.° With the ov divara of the corrupt tree, comp. Rom. viii. 7 f. In 
this emphatic oi dévara: lies the progressive force of the simile. 

Ver. 19. Simply a thought introduced by the way (not as being necessary 
for the logical connection of vv. 16-20), and pointing to the condemnation 
to Gehenna which awaits the false prophets. Comp. with iii. 10. 

Ver. 20. *Apaye] itaque (xvii. 26 ; Acts xi. 18), pointing to the inference 
from vv. 17, 18, and, by way of emphasis, introducing once more that 
which was already stated in ver. 16 as the theme of discourse. 

Vv. 21-23. Jesus now states in literal terms what He meant to convey 
through the simile of the fruit. There is much that is arbitrary in the way 
this passage is dealt with by those who, from their having supposed the 
wevdorpod. of ver. 15 to be Jews, are under the necessity of adopting a dif- 
ferent explanation in the present instance. De Wette, going against the 
context, sees a gradual transition from teachers who teach what is wnsound 
(vv. 15-20) to such (teachers and others) as are satisfied with the mere 
acknowledgment of their belief. Thatit isstill the same false prophets against 
whom the warning in vv. 21-23 is directed, appears from the use of rpoe@yrev- 
cauev in ver, 22, and of oi épyal. r. avouiav in ver. 28, the latter further show- 
ing that capo? rovypoi is to be understood as denoting the characteristic mark 


1 ** Nominis Christiani extrinsecus super- 
ficies,’ Tertullian, de praescr. 4. 

2 Bengel well remarks: ‘‘ Vestibus wt si 
essent oves.”” 

3 With Avxou dprayes, aS representing soul- 
destroying agency, comp. Acts xx. 29; John 
x. 12 

4 Plat. Rep. p. 609 E; Diosce. i. 113. 

5 Comp. évAov campov, Job xii. 19. 
orepavor, Dem. 615. 11. 


gampot 
“Bonitas arboris 


ipsius est veritas et lux interna, ete. ; 
bonitas fructuum est sanctitas vitae. Si 
fructus essent in doctrina positi, nullus 
orthodoxus damnari posset,’’ “The good- 
ness of the tree itself is truth and internal 
light, ete.; the goodness of the fruits is 
holiness of life. If fruit had been placed 
in doctrine (alone), no orthodox Christian 
could be condemned,”’ Bengel. 


168 THE GOSPEL OF MATTHEW. 


of such prophets. —ov zac] not, no one (Elsner, Fritzsche), but, not every 
one, 1 Cor. xv. 39.1 Not all who acknowledge me as their teacher will 
enter the Messianic kingdom, only those among them, and so on. Many 
will not enter therein. Therefore it is not the case that the teachers 
are not referred to till ver. 22, according to the idea of gradation 
which de Wette introduces into that verse: ‘‘ even those who work in my 
name,” and so on. —xipie, xbpce] In addressing their teachers, the Jews em- 
ployed the title 31 or 1. Accordingly it came to be used as a title in 
addressing the Messiah (John xiii. 13f.), and in the church itself came to be 
regarded asthe summary of belief, inasmuch as it contained the full recogni- 
tion of the majesty of Jesus’ person (1 Cor. xii. 3; Phil. ii. 11). Christ 
Himself called no man master. It is on this occasion, and while applying 
to Himself this Messianic title, that He also says for the first time, 6 rarfp 
pov (comp. iii. 17). The twice repeated xipie is meant to convey the idea of 
earnestness.” 

Vv. 22, 23. "Ev éx. rH juépa].*§ —76 06 dvduate] not jussu et auctoritate sua 
(as the majority of commentators, Fritzsche included), as if it had been év 
TO 0G dvou., but by means of Thy name, 2.e. through Thy name (‘‘ Jesus 
Messiah”), having satisfied our religious consciousness, and having become 
the object of our confession. It was by this, as forming the condition and 
instrument, that the works in question were accomplished. In the casting 
out of devils and in performing miracles the name was pronouwnced.*— 
Notice the stress laid upon the o@, and the threefold repetition of the prom- 
inent words 76 o@ dvéu., as expressing that by which the individuals in ques- 
tion think to shelter themselves from disapprobation and rejection, and 
make good their claim to the Messianic kingdom. — zpoegyreic. | not in the 
special sense of foretelling (Grotius, Fritzsche), but (comp. ver. 15) with 
reference to those who taught under the influence of a prophetic enthusiasm 
(see note on 1 Cor. xii. 10). The distinguishing feature in those men is an 
impure, often fanatical, boldness in the faith, which, though enabling them 
to perform outward acts of a marvellous nature, yet fails to exercise any 
influence upon their own moral life—just the sort of thing described by 
Paul in 1 Cor. xiii. 2, and the manifestations of which are to be met with 
in every age, especially in times of great religious excitement.—Ver. 23. 
éuoaoy.| ‘‘ aperte, magna potestas hujus dicti,” Bengel. The conscious dig- 
nity of the future judge of the world. — sti] Recitative. The rendering 
because, to which a different arrangement of the words by Origen, Chrysos- 
tom, Cyprian, and others has given rise (1. . . tac after axoyup.), is less 
in harmony with the emotion of the passage. — éyvwv] not probavi (Kuinoel), 
but novt. Because * I have never known you, have obtained no knowledge 
of you whatever, which I would have done (John x. 14) had ye really been 


1 Winer, p. 161 [E. T. 214]. pévnv, ‘He spoke of that day (é.e¢.) the day 
2 See Bornemann, Schol. in Luc. p. 58, and of judgment, as well knownand expected.” 
in the Stud. u. Krit. 1843, p. 124. Comp. Comp. the Jewish phraseology ; Schoett- 
xxv. 11; Add. ad Hsth. iii. 2,3; LXX. Ps. gen, Hor. in loco. 
Ixxi. 5, 16, 4 Acts iii. 6, xix. 13; comp. on Luke ix. 
3 Euth. Zigabenus, nuépav éxeivynv cime tyhv 49, x. 17. 
TS Kplaews, as eyvwopnevyy Kat mpocdedoKy- 5“ Etsi nomen meum allegatis,”’ Bengel. 


CHAP. VII., 24-27. 169 
in fellowship with me.’ The knowledge is the knowledge of experience 
founded upon the possession of a common life.” — aroxwpeire, k.t.2.] according 
to Ps. vi. 9.° oi épyaféu. is used as a substantive ; while avouia is the 
antithesis of dicacocivy.* Notice how in this passage the great utterance of 
vv. 17, 18 continues to echo to the last, and to bear the impress of the final 
judgment ; comp. Rom. ii. 13. 

Vv. 24-27. Conclusion of the whole sermon, but, as appears from ody, 
taking the form of an inference from what is said immediately before, where 
admission into the Messianic kingdom is made to depend on moral obedience. 
— rac obv boric, k.7.4.] The nominative with rhetorical emphasis placed ana- 
colouthologically at the beginning in x. 14, xiii. 12, xxiii. 16.° — éuo1d0u] 
This future, as well as éuowwOjoeTa, ver. 26, is not to be taken as referring 
to the comparison immediately following (which is the common view), which is 
not warranted by the interrogatory passages, xi. 16, Mark iv. 30, Luke vii. 
31, xiii. 18, 20, but to be understood (like duoAoyyow in ver. 23) of the day 
of judgment (Tholuck), when Christ will make him who yields obedience to 
those sayings of His, like (¢.e., demonstrate as matter of fact that he is like) 
a wise man, and soon. ‘Oxodw therefore does not here denote comparare, but 
the actual making him liketo.° De Wette is at one with Fritzsche as regards 
éuoaow, but differs from him, however, in his view of 6uow/oera: as refer- 
ring to the future result that is developing itself. — ¢poviuw] as in xxv. 2. — 
éxi tHv Tétpav| upon the rock. No particular rock is intended, but the cate- 
gory, as in ver. 26: upon the sand.—Observe the emphatic, nay solemn, 
polysyndeta, and (instead of ére or érei, followed by a statement of the con- 
sequence)’ the paratactic mode of representation in vv. 25 and 27, as also the 
important verbal repetition in ver. 27, where, in the last of the assaults, pooé- 
koway (they assailed it) is only a more concrete way of describing the thing 
than the corresponding zpocérecov of ver. 25. The three points in the picture 
are the roof, the foundation, and the sides of the house. —The pluperfect 
tefeuedioro is without the augment.®.— peyday]® — The meaning of this simple 
but grand similitude, harmonizing in some of its features with Ezek. xiii. 
11 ff., is this : Whoever conforms to the teaching just inculcated is certain 
to obtain salvation in my kingdom, though trying times may await him ; but 
he who is disobedient will lose the expected felicity, and the dire catastrophe 
that is to precede the advent of the Messiah will overwhelm him with aréjea 


(inasmuch as the Messiah, at His coming, will consign him to eternal 
death). 


With regard to the Sermon generally, the following points may be noted :— 
(1.) It is the same discourse which, though according to a different tradi- 
tion and redaction, is found in Luke vi. 20-49. For although it is there 


1 Comp. Luke xili. 27. 6 Plat. Rep. p. 393 C; Matt. vi. 8, xxv. 1, 


2 Similarly 1 Cor. viii. 3, xiii. 12; Gal. iv. 9. 


3 Comp. xxv. 41. 


42Cor. vi. 14, Heb. i. 9, as in xiii. 41, xxiii. 


28, xxiv. 12. 


5 See Kiihner, II. 1, p. 42; Winer, p. 534 f. 


[E..T. 718]. 


xiii. 24; Rom. ix. 29. See the scholion of 
Photius in Matthaei, ad Huth. Zig. p. 290. 

7 Kriiger, Xen. Anab. p. 404 ; Ktihner, II. 2, 
p. 782 f. 

§ On this see Winer, p. 70 [E. T. 85]. 

9 ** Magna, sane totalis,” Bengel. 


170 THE GOSPEL OF MATTHEW. 


represented as occurring at a later date and in another locality (ver. 17), and 
although, in respect of its contents, style, and arrangement it differs widely 
from that in Matthew, yet, judging from its characteristic introduction and 
close, its manifold and essential identity as regards the subject-matter, as 
well as from its mentioning the circumstance that, immediately after, Jesus 
cured the sick servant in Capernaum (Luke vii. 1 ff.), it is clear that Matthew 
and Luke do not record two different discourses (Augustine, Erasmus, 
Andr. Osiander, Molinaeus, Jansen, Biisching, Hess, Storr, Gratz, Krafft), 
but different versions of one and the same (Origen, Chrysostom, Bucer, 
Calvin, Chemnitz, Calovius, Bengel, and most modern commentators). 

(2.) The preference as regards originality of tradition is not to be accorded 
to Luke (Schneckenburger, Olshausen, Wilke, B. Bauer, Schenkel, and, in 
the main, Bleek and Holtzmann), but to Matthew (Schleiermacher, Kern, 
Tholuck, de Wette, Weiss, Weizsiicker, Keim), because, as compared with 
Matthew, Luke’s version is so incomplete in its character, that one sees in 
it merely the disjointed fragments of what had once been a much more 
copious discourse. In Matthew, on the other hand, there is that combina- 
tion of full detail, and sententious brevity, and disregard of connection, 
which is so natural in the case of alengthened extemporaneous and spirited 
address actually delivered, but not suited to the purpose of a mere compiler 
of traditions, to whose art Ewald? ascribes the structure of the discourse. 
The Sermon on the Mount is omitted in Mark. But the view that this evan- 
gelist originally borrowed it, though in an abridged form, from Matthew’s 
collection of our Lord’s sayings, and that the place where it stood in Mark 
ili. 19, just before xa? épy. ei¢ olkov, may still be traced (Ewald, Holtzmann), 
rests on the utterly unwarrantable supposition ? that the second Gospel has 
not come down to us in its original shape. On the other hand, see espe- 
cially Weiss. Besides, there is no apparent reason why so important a pas- 
sage should have been entirely struck out by Mark, if it had been originally 
there. 

(3.) Since the original production of Matthew the apostle consisted of the 
Adyta Tod Kvpiov,*® it may be assumed that the Sermon on the Mount, as given 
in the present Gospel of Matthew, was in all essential respects one of the 
principal elements in that original. However, it is impossible to maintain 
that it was delivered (and reproduced from memory), in the precise form in 
which it has been preserved in Matthew. This follows at once from the 
length of the discourse and the variety of its contents, and is further con- 
firmed by the circumstance that Matthew himself, according to ix. 9, did not 
as yet belong to the number of those to whom it had been addressed. By 
way of showing that the Sermon on the Mount cannot have been delivered 
(Luke vi. 20) till after the choice of the Twelve (Wieseler, Tholuck, Hilgen- 
feld, Ebrard, Bleek, Holtzmann, Keim), reasons of this sort have been al- 
leged, that, at so early a stage, Jesus could not have indulged in such a 
polemical style of address toward the Pharisees. This, however, is unsatis- 
factory, since even a later period would still be open to a similar objection. 


1 Jahrb. I. p. 181. 2 Introduction, sec. 4. 3 Introduction, sec. 2. 


THE SERMON ON THE MOUNT. Biya 
On the other hand, it is to be observed further, that so important a histori- 
cal connection (viz. with the choice of the Twelve) could not fail to have 
been preserved among the ancient traditions recorded by Matthew, if such 
connection had actually existed, while again it is in accordance with the 
natural development of tradition, to suppose that the presence of the patyrai 
(Matt. v. 1), which is historically certain, as well as the numerous impor- 
tant references to the calling of the disciples, may have led to the adoption 
of a later date in the subsequent traditions. Those who represent the evan- 
gelist as introducing the Sermon at an earlier stage than that to which it 
strictly belongs, are therefore charging him with gross confusion in his de- 
termination of the place in which it ought tostand. But although Matthew 
was not present himself at the Sermon on the Mount, but only reports what 
he learned indirectly through those who were so, still his report so preserves 
that happy combination of thoughtful purpose with the freedom of extem- 
poraneous speech which distinguished the discourse, that one cannot fail 
clearly enough to recognize its substantial originality. This, however, can 
only be regarded as a relative originality, such as makes it impossible to say 
not only to what extent the form and arrangement of the discourse have 
been influenced by new versions of the Aéya on the one hand, and new 
modifications of the Gospel on the other, but also how much of what our 
Lord altered on some other occasion has been, either unconsciously or inten- 
tionally, interwoven with kindred elements in the address. But, in seeking 
to eliminate such foreign matters, critics have started with subjective as- 
sumptions and uncertain views, and so have each arrived at very conflicting 
results. Utterly inadmissible is the view of Calvin and Semler, which has 
obtained currency above all through Pott? and Kuinoel, that the Sermon on 
the Mount is a conglomerate, consisting of a great many detached sentences 
uttered by Jesus on different occasions,? and in proof of which we are re- 
ferred especially to the numerous fragments that are to be found scattered 
throughout Luke. No doubt, in the case of the Lord’s Prayer, vi. 9 ff., the 
claim of originality must be decided in favor of Luke’s account. Other- 
wise, however, the historical connection of Luke’s parallel passages is such 
as, in no single instance, to justify their claim to the originality in question. 
In fact, the connection in which most of them stand is less appropriate than 


1 De natura atque indole orat. mont. 1788. 

2 Strauss compares the different materials 
of the discourse to boulders that have been 
washed away from their original bed; 
while Matthew, he thinks, has shown special 
skill in grouping together the various cog- 
nate elements. This is substantially the 
view of Baur. Both, however, are opposed 
to the notion that Luke’s version is distin- 
guished by greater originality. Holtzmann 
ascribes to Matthew the arrangement and 


the grouping of the ideas, while to Jesus ° 


again he ascribes the various apothegms 
that fill up the outline. Weizsicker regards 
the discourse as fabricated, and having no 


reference to any definite situation, with a view, 
as he thinks, to show the relation of Jesus to 
the law, and therewith its introduction into 
the kingdom of God; what interrupts this 
branch of the discourse, which was sketched 
as a unity, viz. v. 11 f., vi. 9 ff., vii. 21-23, are 
inexplicable additions, and vii. 1-23 con- 
tains insertions which have a general re- 
lationship to the principal thoughts. Ac- 
cording to Weiss, the following passages in 
particular belong to the insertions : y. 13-16, 
v. 25 f., vi. 7-15, vi. 19-84, vii. 7-11. The dis- 
course, moreover, is said to have begun 
originally with only four beatitudes. 


172 THE GOSPEL OF MATTHEW. 


that of Matthew (Luke xi. 34-36 compared with Matt. vi. 22 f. ; Luke xvi. 
17 compared with Matt. v. 18; Luke xii. 58 ff. compared with Matt. 
v. 24 ff. ; Luke xvi. 18 compared with Matt. v. 32), while others leave 
room for supposing that Jesus has used the same expression twice (Luke 
xii. 83 f. comp. Matt. vi. 19-21 ; Luke xiii. 24 comp. Matt. vil. 13 ; Luke 
xili. 25-27 comp. Matt. vii. 22 f. ; Luke xiv. 34 comp. Matt. v. 13 ; Luke 
xvi. 13 comp. Matt. vi. 24) on different occasions, which is quite possible, 
especially when we consider the plastic nature of the figurative language 
employed. For, when Luke himself makes use of the saying about the 
candle, Matt. v. 15, on two occasions (viii. 16, xi. 33), there is no neces- 
sity for thinking (as Weiss does) that he has been betrayed into doing so by 
Mark iv. 21. Luke’s secondary character as regards the Sermon on the 
Mount is seen, above all, in his omitting Jesus’ fundamental exposition of 
the law. In deriving that exposition from some special treatise dealing with 
the question of Jesus’ attitude toward the law, Holtzmann adopts a view 
* that is peculiarly untenable in the case of the first Gospel (which grew di- 
rectly out of the Ady:a) ; so, on the other hand, Weiss, 1864, p. 56 f. 

(4.) Those whom Jesus addressed in the Sermon on the Mount were, in 
the first instance, His own disciples (v. 1), among whom were present some 
of those who were afterwards knownas the Twelve (iv. 18 ff.), for which 
reason also a part of the discourse has the apostolic office distinctly in view; 
but the surrounding multitude (vii. 28) had also been listening, and were 
deeply astonished at the instruction they received. Accordingly, it may 
well be supposed that though Jesus’ words were intended more immediately 
for the benefit of His disciples (v. 2), the listening multitude was by no 
means overlooked, but formed the outer circle of His audience, so that by 
look and gesture He could easily make it appear what was intended for the 
one circle and what for the other ; comp. v. 2. What is said of ancient or- 
atory is no less true of the animation with which Jesus spoke : ‘‘in antiqua 
 oratione oculus, manus, digitus vice interpretis funguntur,” ‘‘in ancient 
oratory the eye, the hand, the finger serve in place of an interpreter.” ? 
These observations will suffice to explain the presence of a mixed teaching 
suited to the outer and inner circle, partly ideal and partly of a popular and 
less abstract character (in answer to Wittichen).? 

(5.) The object of the sermon cannot have been the consecration of the 
apostles (Zacharias, Pott, Ewald, Jahrb. I. p. 129), partly because the con- 
nection in which Luke places this address with the choosing of the Twelve 
is not to be preferred to the historical connection given in Matthew (see 
above, under 2); partly because Matthew, who does not record any passage 
containing special instructions for the apostles till ch. x., makes no mention 
whatever of such an object (he only says édidacxev aitovc, V. 2); and partly 
because the contents are, as a whole, by no means in keeping with such a 
special aim as is here supposed. Judging from the contents, the object of 
Jesus, as the fulfiller of the law and the prophets, is to set forth the moral con- 
ditions of admission to the approaching Messianic kingdom. But the principle 


1 Wolf, ad Leptin. p. 365. 2 Jahrb. f. D. Th. 1€62, p. 318 ff. 


CHAP. VII., 28, 29. 173 


of a morality rooted in the heart, on which He insists, is, seeing that it is 
His disciples that are immediately addressed, necessarily faith in Him, as 
Luther especially has so often and so ably maintained.’ The whole dis- 
course isa lively commentary on the words with which Jesus introduced 
His public ministry : petavoeite, jyyixe yap 1) Bacideia tov ovpavov, setting 
forth the great moral effects of the verdvoca which He requires, and declar- 
ing them to be the condition of Messianic bliss for those who believe in 
Him. So far the discourse may be correctly described as the inaugural 
address of His kingdom, as its ‘‘magna charta” (Tholuck), less appropri- 
ately as the ‘‘ compedium of His doctrine” (de Wette). 

(6.) The passages in which Jesus plainly reveals Himself as the Messiah 
(v. 17 f., vil. 21 ff.) are not at variance with xvi. 17 (see note on this pas- 
sage), but fully harmonize with the Messianic conviction of which He was 
already possessed at His baptism, and which was divinely confirmed on that 
occasion, and with which He commenced His public ministry (iv. 17); just 
as in the fourth Gospel, also, He gives expression to His Messianic con- 
sciousness from the very outset, both within and beyond the circle of His 
disciples. Consequently, it is not necessary to suppose that a torepov mpdre- 
pov * has taken place, which, according to Késtlin, had already been forced 
into the 2é6y:a ; nor need we allow ourselves to be driven to the necessity of 
assigning a later date to the discourse.* Besides, in the Sermon on the 
Mount, Jesus does not as yet assume to Himself any express or formal desig- 
nation as Messiah, although a Messianic sense of the importance of His éyé 
runs through the entire discourse ; and the notion that His consciousness of 
being the Messiah only gradually developed itself at a later period,‘ is con- 
trary to the whole testimony of the Gospels. 


Ver. 28. Kai éyévero] 171.°— éxi] asthroughout the New Testament. In 
classical Greek the usual construction is with the dat., sometimes with the 
ace., and more rarely with éxi.° The discourse, which has been listened to 
with deep and unwearied attention, having now been brought to a close, 
there follows an outburst of astonishment, ‘‘ quod nova quaedam majestas et 
insueta hominum mentes ad se raperet,” Calvin. This in answer to Késtlin, 
p. 77, Holtzmann, who regard this statement as borrowed from Mark i. 22. 

Ver. 29. "Hy diddcxwv] expresses more emphatically than a simple imperf. 
that it was a continuous thing."—dé¢ é£ovaiav éywv] as one who is invested 
with prophetic authority, in contrast to the ypaupareic, in listening to whom 
one could hear that they were not authorized to speak in the same fearless, 
candid, unconstrained, convincing, telling, forcible way. ‘All was full 
of life, and sounded as though it had hands and feet,” Luther.® 


! Comp. Hofmann, Schriftbew. I. p. 598 ff., 6 Xen. Cyrop.i. 4. 27; Polyb. v. 48, 3, ii. 3. 


Tholuck. 38, al. 
2De Wette, Baur. 7 Kiihner, I. 1, p. 35. Winer, p. 526 f. 
°’ Tholuck, Hilgenfeld. [E. T. 487]. 
4 Strauss, Schenkel. Weissenbach. 8 Comp. Luke iv. 82, 86; Mark i. 22, 27; 


5 Winer, p. 565 [E. T. 760]. Rev. ix. 19. 


174 THE GOSPEL OF MATTHEW. 


CHAPTER Vill. 


Ver. 1. karaGarvti 68 ait@] Lachm. According to Z Codd. of the It. Hil. : kai 
KataBavroc avrov, instead of which B C 8** Curss. have xataBavtoc dé abrov. A 
mere correction, like the similarly attested eice2Odvroc dé airov, ver. 5, in Lachm. 
and Tisch. 8. — Ver. 2. éA@6v] Lachm. and Tisch. : zpoceAQov, according to 
BEM A Nand several Curss. as well as some Verss. and Fathers. Correctly, 
mpoc having dropped out owing to the final syllab. of Aetpdc. — Ver. 3. 6 “Incovc] 
is not found in B C* &, Curss, Verss. Deleted by Lachm. and Tisch. A 
common supplementary addition, and evidently such in the present instance, 
from its shifting position, for several authorities have it before jaro. — Ver. 5. 
aitw| Elz. : to ’Inoov, contrary to decisive authorities. — Ver. 8. Ady] Elz. : 
Aéyov, against such decisive authority, that Ady must not be regarded as intro- 
duced from Luke vii. 7; but Adyov seems to be a correction through igno- 
rance. — Ver. 9. After é£ovoiavy Lachm. has tacoduevoc (B 8, 4, 238, 421, Vulg. It. 
Chrys.) ; taken from Luke vii. 8. — Ver. 10. otdé év 76 ’IopanaA tocattnv riotw 
evpov| Lachm.: rap’ obdevi rocaitnv riorw év T@ "lop. eipov, only according to 
B, Curss, and several Verss. and Fathers. The same reading, though not so 
well attested, isalso found in Luke vii.9. An interpretation in which the 
meaning of ovdé has been missed, and the prefixing of év rw ’IopanA. misunder- 
stood (comp. Vulg.). — Ver. 12. é«8AnO70.] Tisch. 8 : éeAevoovtra, on too slender 
authority ; among the Codd. only &.*— Ver. 13. airoi] wanting in B & and 
several Curss. and Verss. and in Basil. Deleted by Lachm. and Tisch. 8. 
Passed over as unnecessary. For what immediately follows Lachm. reads a7é 
TIC Wpac ékelvyc, in accordance with less important authorities (C A). In con-- 
formity with ix. 22, xv. 28, xvii. 18. — Ver. 15. aiz@] so also Scholz, Lachm. : 
and Tisch., according to decisive authority. The airotc of the Received text, 
defended by Griesb. and Fritzsche, is taken from Mark i. 31, Luke iy. 39. — 
Ver. 18. roAdode byAovce] Lachm. : éyAov, only according to B, but correct. 
Matth. would certainly have written 6yAovc roAAovc, as in ver. 1, xiii. 2, xv. 30, 
andall through ; for only in xiy. 14 does he put woAzc first, where, however, the 
singul. occurs. Besides, the reading of the Received text might easily be a 
gloss to strengthen the expression. — Ver. 23. 70 rAoiov] The article is omitted in 
BC, Curss, Or., and is deleted by Lachm., but had been left out from not being 
understood. So also in ix. 1, xiii. 2, in which cases it is deleted by Tisch. 8 as 
well. — Ver. 25, of xanrai] The Received text inserts aitov, which, however, is 
deleted, in accordance with decisive testimonies. Oi wa%yrai is also omitted in 
B &, Verss. as well as by Jerome, Bede. Bracketed by Lachm., deleted by 
Tisch. 8. But the omission may be accounted for from the fact that, similarly 
in the parallels of Mark and Luke, this, the obvious subject, is not expressed.— 
quac| is wanting in BC §1, 13, 118, 209. Justly deleted by Fritzsche, Lachm. 
and Tisch. ; for, while there seemed to be no reason why it should have been 
omitted, the insertion of it, on the other hand, would naturally suggest itself, 
if it did not happen to be noticed how the mode of expression is suited to the 


GHAP. SVILE.) £572. 175 
feeling of the passage. —Ver. 28. éA9dvre avt@] Lachm. Tisch. 8: éA0dvroc 
avrov, according to B C &** and Curss. See ver. 1.-—Tepacnvav] Fritzsche and 
Scholz, also Tisch. : Tadapnvév, according to B C M A, Curss. Syr. utr. Perss. 
Eus. Epiph. ; Elz. : Tepyecnvav, according to C¥** KK LS UV X &8.* See in 
general, Orig. iv. p. 140. The reading Tadapnvav, which Orig. found év driyoe, 
has topographical reasons in its favor ; I'epaonjvdv, however, is supported by 
Origen’s statement, that in his time it was the prevailing reading.! — Ver. 29. 
ool] Elz. and Scholz insert ‘Ijcov, which is not found in BC L &, Curss. Codd. It. 
Copt. Cypr. Or. Taken from Mark v. 7, Luke viii. 28, — Ver. 31. éritpepov jyiv 
areAOeiv] Griesb. Lachm. Tisch. : axéaretAov jude, according to B &, Curss. Syr. 
and the majority of Verss. Correctly; the reading of the Received text is adopted 
from Luke viii. 32 (where several authorities have aveA9eiv instead of eiceAQeiv). 
Had it been a correction from Mark v. 12, we should have found zém)pov instead 
of dréorecAov in the present passage. — Ver. 32. eic rod¢ yoipovc] as Lachm. and 
Tisch. 8, according to B C* &, Curss. and most Verss. But the Recept. ei¢ tiv 
ayéAnv Tov yoipwv is to be preferred all the more that the adoption of eic¢ rode 
xoipovc, from the parallels of Mark and Luke, was favored by the greater deti- 
niteness of meaning (into the bodies of the swine). — After 7 ayéAn Elz. inserts trav 
xoipwv. It is wanting, indeed, in B C* M AX, Curss. and the majority of 
Verss., and is deleted by Griesb. Scholz, Lachm. and Tisch. 8. But how easily 
may it have been omitted as quite unnecessary, owing to the parallels in Mark 
and Luke! Ina case where the meaning was so obvious, there was no motive 
for inserting it. 


Ver. 1. Airé . . . ait@] as inv. 40, and frequently in Matthew as well as 
in classical writers.” — The healing of the leper occurs in Luke (v. 12 ff.) be- 
fore the Sermon on the Mount, and in Mark (i. 40 ff.) and Luke not till after 
the healing of Peter’s mother-in-law. It is not to be regarded as the earliest 
of all the miracles of healing. 

Ver. 2. Aerpéc] Aéxpa, DYIS, a most dangerous contagious disease, de- 
scending to the fourth generation, which lacerated the body with scales, 
tetter, and sores. — xipie] To express the reverence that is founded on the 
recognition of higher power. — éay 6éAn¢] entire resignation to the mighty 
will of Jesus. — xafapica:] from the disease that was polluting the body.* 
—éxafapicOn aitod 7 Aéxpa] and immediately his leprosy was  cleansed.° 
The leprosy is spoken of as cleansed, according to the idea that the disease 
experiences the healing—that the disease is healed (iv. 23). Differently and 
more correctly expressed in Mark i. 42. — On 6é2#, Bengel aptly observes : 
‘*echo prompta ad fidem leprosi maturam,” ‘‘speedy echo to the ripe faith 
of the leper.” In answer to Paulus, who understands the cleansing in the 
sense of pronouncing clean,—as also Schenkel, Keim. See Strauss, I. p. 48 
ff., and Bleek. 





1 Tepac. is still found in the Syr. p. on the 
margin, Sahid. Sax. It. Vulg. Hilar. Nyss. 
Ath. Juy. Prud. Adopted by Lachm. For 
the decision, see exegetical notes.—N* has 
Tagapnvev, which is only another way of 
pronouncing Vadap. ; see Grimm on 1 Mace. 
iv. 15. 

2 See Bornemann, ad Xen. Symp. iv. 63; 


Winer, p. 189 f. [E. T. 275]. 

3 Trusen, bibl. Krankh. p. 103 ff. ; Kurtz in 
Herzog’s Encykl. I. p. 626 ff.; Furer in 
Schenkel’s Bibellex. I. p. 317 ff. ; Saalschutz, 
M. R. p. 223 ff. 

4 Plut. Mor. p. 134 D. 

5 John xi. 32, xiii. 25, xxii. 18, xxv. 51. 


176 , THE GOSPEL OF MATTHEW. 


Ver. 4. The injunction, not to mention the matter to any one, cannot be re- 
garded as an evidence of Matthew’s dependence on Mark (Holtzman ; 
comp. xii. 15 with Mark i. 43 and iii. 7 ff.), because the connection in Mark 
is supposed to be somewhat more appropriate, but is only to be taken as ex- 
pressing a desire on the part of Jesus to prevent any commotion among the 
people with their fanatical Messianic hopes, at least as far as, by discourag- 
ing publicity, it was in His own power to do so (Chrysostom)—to prevent 
what, according to Mark i. 45 (Luke v. 15), actually took place through a 
disregard of this injunction.! The miracle was no doubt performed (ver. 1) 
before the people (in answer to Schenkel), and in the open air ; but, in the 
‘first place, only those standing near would be in a position to hear or see 
the course of the miracle with sufficient minuteness ; and, secondly, in giv- 
ing this injunction, Jesus was also keeping in view the fact of the leper’s 
being about to visit Jerusalem, and to sojourn there. Consequently we 
must reject the view of Maldonatus, Grotius, Bengel, Wetstein, Kuinoel, 
Paulus, Gléckler, to the effect that He wished to provide against any refusal 
on the part of the priests to pronounce the man clean. Equally inadmissible 
is that of Fritzsche, Baumgarten-Crusius, and Keim, that at present, above 
all, he insisted on the more important duty,—that, namely, of the man’s 
subjecting himself to the inspection of the priests, which is not in accord- 
ance with the occasional épa (comp. ix. 31) ; nor can we accept Olshausen’s 
view, that the motive for the injunction is to be sought in the man himself. 
Baur holds that the injunction is not to be regarded as historical, but only 
as the product of tradition, arising out of the application to Jesus of Isa, 
xlii. 1 ff. But the truth is, that prohibition is not once mentioned in Isa, 
xlii., which contains only a general description of the Messiah’s humility. 
Moreover, it would not be apparent why the passage from Isaiah is not 
quoted here, when the injunction in question occurs for the first time, but 
afterwards in xii. 17. —ceavrév] thyself. Instead of making a talk about the 
matter, go and present yourself im person before the proper authorities. — 
TG iepet| Lev. xiv. 2. — 7d dépov] the offering prescribed in Lev. xiv. 10, 21.? 
—ei¢ wapripiov avtoic| as an evidence to them, i.e., to the people, that thou hast 
been healed. This reference of airoic follows contextually from dpa, pydevi 
eivyc, and that of wapripiov (evidence that thou art cleansed) from a consider- 
ation of the object of the legal prescription in question ; see Lev. xiv. 57. 
It is importing a foreign element, to suppose that the testimony was further 
meant to show that ‘‘I am not abrogating the law ” (Chrysostom, Theophy- 
lact ; see what follows); comp. also Fritzsche, who looks upon the words 
as containing a remark by Matthew himself : ‘‘ Haec autem dixit, ut turbae 
testaretur, se magni facere Mosis instituta.” As decisive against the latter 
view, we have the fact that both Mark and Luke record the words ei¢ pap- 
Tipiov avroic, and that, too, in such a way as to make it evident that they 
formed part of what was spoken by Jesus (Luke v. 14). Chrysostom and 
Fathers understand airoic as referring to the priests, in which case the testi- 


1 Comp. ix. 30, xii. 16; Mark iii. 12, v. 43, 2See Ewald, Alterth. p. 210 f.; Keil, 
Vii. 36, viii. 26, 30; Matt. xvi. 20, xvii. 9. Archdol. § 59. 


CHAP. VIII., 4. 177 
mony is regarded as intended to show either (what is in itself correct) Jesus’ 
respect for the law,’to which the person cleansed was expected to bear wit- 
ness before the priests,? — or the reality of the cure, ‘‘sisc. vellent in posterum 
negare, me tibi sanitatem restituisse,” ‘‘if they should wish to deny in the 
future that I have restored you to health,” * and at the same time the Mes- 
siahship of Jesus (Calovius). According to Olshausen, it is a testimony borne 

_by the priests themselves that is meant ; inasmuch as, by pronouncing the 
man clean, they become witnesses to the genuineness of the miracle, and at 
the same time condemn their own unbelief (a confusion of two things that 
are no less erroneous than foreign to the purpose). If airoic referred to the 
priests, then of course papripiov could only be understood as meaning an 
evidence or proof that the cleansing had taken place (Grotius). However, 
the offering was not meant to furnish such evidence to the priests, but to the 
people, who were now at liberty to resume their intercourse with the person 
who had been healed. 


Remarx.—Attempts of various kinds have been made to divest the miracles of 
Jesus of their special character, and to reduce them to the order of natural events 
(Paulus),partly by accounting for them on physiological or psychological grounds, 
and partly by explaining them on certain exegetical, allegorical, or mythical 
principles of interpretation. Some, again, have sought to remove them entirely 
from the sphere of actual fact, and to ascribe their origin to legends elaborated 
out of Old Testament types and prophecies (Strauss) ; to the influence of relig- 
ious feeling in the church (B. Bauer) ; to narratives of an allegorical character 
(Volkmar) ; to the desire to embody certain ideas and tendencies of thought in 
historical incidents (Baur) ; as well as to mistakes of every sort in the under- 
standing of similitudes and parables (Weisse). To admit the supernatural 
origin of Christianity is not inconsistent with the idea of its historical conti- 
nuity (Baur) ; but the denial of miracles involves both an avowed and a covert 
impugning of the evangelic narrative,—which, as such, is in its substance condi- 
tioned by miracles (Holtzmann, p. 510),—and consequently does away almost 
entirely with its historical character. As a further result, Christianity itself is 
endangered, in so far as it is matter of history and not the product of the inde- 
pendent development of the human mind, and inasmuch as its entrance into 
the world through the incarnation of the Son of God is analogous to the mira- 
cle of creation (Philippi, Glaubensl. I. p. 25 ff., ed. 2). The miracles of Jesus, 
which should always be viewed in connection with His whole redeeming work 
(K6stlin, 1860, p. 14 ff.), are outward manifestations of the power of God’s 


1 Euth. Zigabenus, Bengel, Keim. Beyschlag, wb. d@. Bedeut. d. Wunders im 


2 Chrysostom : eis EAeyxov, eis amoSerévy, eis 
KaTyyoplav, €ayv ayywnovecu, ‘for proof, for 
argument, for accusation, if they act un- 
fairly.” 

®* Kuinoel, Erasmus, Maldonatus, Grotius 

4 See Schleiermacher, Z. J. p. 206 ff. ; Ju- 
lius Miiller, de miracuor. J.Ch. natura et ne- 
cessitate, I. II. 1839, 1841; Koéstlin, de mira- 
culor. quae Chr. et primi ej. discip. fecerunt, 
natura et ratione, 1860; Rothe in d@. Sluvd. u. 
Krit. 1858, p. 21 ff., and zur Dogmat. p. 104 ff.; 


Christenth. 1862; Dorner, Jesu stindlose Voll- 
kommenh. 1862, p. 51 ff. ; Hirzel, wb d. Wun- 
der. 1863 ; Giider, bd. Wunder, 1868 ; Stein- 
meyer, Apolog. Beitr. I. 1866; Baxmann in 
d. Jahrb. f. D. Th. 1863, p. 749 ff. ; Kostlin, 
ibid. 1864, p. 205 ff.; Bender d. Wunderbeg. 
d. N. T.1871. On the synoptic accounts of 
the miracles, see Holtzmann, p. 497; and 
on the various kinds of miracles, Keim, IT. 
125 ff.; on the miracles of healing, see 
Weizsacker, p. 360 ff. 


178 THE GOSPEL OF MATTHEW. 


Spirit, dwelling in Him in virtue of His Sonship, and corresponding to His 
peculiar relation to the world (Hirzel), as well as to His no less peculiar rela- 
tion to the living God ; their design was to authenticate His Messianic mission, 
and in this lay their telic necessity,—a necessity, however, that is always to be 
regarded as only relative (Schott, de consilio, quo Jesus mirac. edideril, Opuse. I. 
p. 111 ff.). And this according to John ii. 11. In exercising His supernatural 
power of healing, the usual though not always (Matt. viii. 5 ff. ; John iv. 47 f£.; 
Matt. ix. 23 ff. ; Luke xxii. 51) indispensable condition on which He imparted 
the blessing was faith in that power on the part of the person to be healed ; 
nothing, however, but positive unbelief prevented this power from taking effect 
Matt. xiii. 58 ; Mark vi. 5 f.; comp. Julius Miiller, II. p. 17) ; but Christ’s heart- 
searching look (John ii. 25) enabled Him to detect those cases where the attempt 
would be fruitless. Moreover, the miracles of Jesus are not to be regarded as 
things that contradict or violate the laws of nature, but rather as comprehended 
within the great system of natural law, the harmonious connection of which in 
all its parts it is not for us to fathom. In this respect the phenomena of magnet- 
ism furnish an analogy, though a poorand imperfect one ; and the more that is 
known of the laws of nature, the idea of any annulling or suspension of these 
laws only appears the more absurd. See Késtlin, 1860, p. 59 ff., 1864, p. 259 ff.; 
Rothe, p. 34 ff. The miracles, therefore, are ‘reflections in nature” of God’s 
revelation of Himself (Beyschlag), ‘‘something strictly in accordance with 
law” (Nitzsch), which, in the sphere of nature, appears as the necessary and 
natural correlative of the highest miracle in the spiritual world—viz. the ac- 
complishment of the work of redemption by the incarnate Son of God. As 
this work has its necessary conditions in the higher order of the moral world 
established and ruled by the holy God in accordance with His love, so the mir- 
acles have theirs in the laws of a higher order of nature corresponding to the 
loving purposes of the Creator, inasmuch as this latter order, in virtue of the 
connection between nature and spirit, is upheld by that Being whose spiritual 
power determines all its movements. Comp. Liebner, Christologie, I. p. 351: 
«The miracles of Christ are occasional manifestations of the complete intro- 
duction, through the God-man, of that relation between nature and spirit 
which is to be perfected in the end of the world’”—means by which the Adyoc¢ 
reveals Himself in His human impersonation and work, so that they are always 
of a moral nature, and have always a moral aim in view, unfolding, in their es- 
sential connection with His preaching, the miracle of the incarnation on which 
His whole work was based (Martensen, Dogm. § 155 [E. T. p. 301]). Observe, 
moreover, how the power to work miracles was a gift and onweiov of the apostles 
(Rom. xv. 19; 2 Cor. xii. 12; Heb. ii. 4), and a yapicua of the apostolic church 
(1 Cor. xii. 9 f.), a fact which warrants us in assuming, indeed in inferring a 
minori ad majus, the reality of the miracles of Jesus Himself—in general, we 
mean, and without prejudice to the criticism of the narratives in detail. At 
the same time, in the application of such criticism, the hypothesis of legendary 
embellishments should be treated with great caution by a modest exegesis, and 
all the more that, in the fourth Gospel, we have a series of miracles bearing the 
attestation of one who was an eye-witness, and which, in their various features 
correspond to many of those recorded by the Synoptists. 


Ver. 5. The centurion was a Gentile by birth, ver. 10, but connected with 
Judaism (Luke vii. 3), probably from being a proselyte of the gate, and was 


4 


CHAP. VIII., 6-9. 179 
serving in the army of Herod Antipas. The narrative is, in the main, iden- 
tical with Luke vii., differing only in points of minor importance. The 
question as to which of the two evangelists the preference in point of orig- 
inality is to be accorded, must be decided not in favor of Matthew 
(Bleek, Keim), but of Luke, whose special statements in the course of the 
incident (misinterpreted by Strauss and Bruno Bauer, comp. de Wette) can- 
not, except in an arbitrary way, be ascribed to an amplifying tendency ; 
they bear throughout the stamp of historical and psychological originality, 
and nothing would have been more superfluous than to have invented them 
for the sake of giving greater prominence to the man’s humility, which is 
brought our quite as fully and touchingly in Matthew’s narrative.’ For the 
points of difference in the account John iv. 47 ff., see note on that passage, 

Ver. 6. ‘0 rai¢ ov] not son (Strauss, Neander, Baumgarten-Crusius, Bleek, 
Hilgenfeld, Keim), but slave (Luke vii. 7; Matt. xiv. 2); yet not: my 
favorite slave (Fritzsche, comp. Luke vii. 2) ; but either the centurion had 
only the one, or else he refers to that one in particular whom he had in view. 
From ver. 9, the former appears to be the more probable view. — BéBAyrav| 
is laid down.? The perf. as denoting the existing condition. The descrip- 
tion of the disease is not at cariance with Luke vii. 2, but more exact. — 
rapadut.| see on iv. 24. 

Ver. 7. And Jesus (perceiving, from his mode of address and whole de- 
meanor, the centurion’s faith in His divine miraculous power) answered 
him: I (emphatically) will come, and so on. Fritzsche puts it interroga- 
But? said Jesus to him, Am I to come and heal him (@epar. con). 
aor.) ? This is refining more than is necessary, and not in keeping with the 
simple character of the passage.* 

Ver. 8. Aéy] Dat. of the means and instrument, as in Luke vii. 7 ; speak 
it, 7.¢., command, with a word, that he become whole. This is by way of 
expressing a contrast. to the proffered personal service.’ Here again the iva 
does not represent the infinitive construction, but : I am not suflicient (worthy 
enough) for the purpose that Thou shouldst go (John i. 27) under my roof.* 
As a Gentile by birth, and loving, as he does, the Jewish people (Luke 
vii.), he feels most deeply his own unworthiness in presence of this great 
miracle-worker that has arisen among them.’ 

Ver. 9. Kai. . . éo0vciav] ard tov Ka?’ gavtov brodetypatog Katackevalel, OTL 
kal Adyw udvy dtvara, ‘from the pattern in his own case he argues that (the 
Lord) has power by evena word only.” * "Avép. iz é&. go together (in answer 
to Fritzsche). The connecting of this substantive with éywr, etc., serves to 
indicate at once his own obedience and that which he exacts and received 


tively. 


1 Comp. Neander, Krabbe, Lange. 

2 Comp. ix. 2. 

3xat,by way of coupling an objection, 
Porson, ad Eur. Phoen. 1373. 

4Bengel well says, ‘‘Divina sapientia 
Jesus, eos sermones proponit, quibus elicit 
confessionem fidelium eosque antevertit,” 
“By divine wisdom Jesus sets forth those 
sayings by which He elicits the confession 


of the faithful, and anticipates them.” 

5 Lobeck, Paralip. p. 525. 

6 Soph. Amf. 1233. 

7 And “non superstitione, sed fide dixit, 
se indignum esse,” “he said, not supersti- 
tiously, but in faith, that he was un- 
worthy,’ Maldonatus. 

8 Euth. Zigabenus. 


180 THE GOSPEL OF MATTHEW. 

from others. It is quite gratuitous to suppose that the centurion regards 
the disease as caused by demons that are compelled to yield to the behests of 
Jesus (Fritzsche, Ewald) ; and it is equally so to impute to him the belief 
that the duty of carrying out those behests is entrusted to angels (Hrasmus, 
Wetstein, Olshausen, Baumgarten-Crusius). From the context it simply ° 
appears that he looked upon diseases as subject to Christ’s authority, and 
therefore ready to disappear whenever He ordered them to do so (Theophy- 
lact, Euth. Zigabenus, Bengel, de Wette). It is thus that he commands the 
Sever in Luke iv. 39, and it ceases.' His inference is a case of reasoning @ 
minori ad majus. 

Ver. 10. Oidé év 7. "Iap.] not even among Israelites, the people of God, who 
are in possession of rac repi éuov paprupiac Tov ypador, ‘‘the witness of the 
Scriptures respecting me,” (Euth. Zigabenus). So the centurion was not a 
proselyte of righteousness ; comp. ver. 11 f., where Jews and Gentiles are 
contrasted with each other. And yet in him faith and humility were 
found inseparably united, as by nature they ought to be, and that more than 
in the case of the ordinary native Jew. With this unfavorable testimony 
against Israel, comp. the history of the woman of Canaan, xv. 22 ff. 

Ver. 11. ’Azé avar. cai duou.| from the most widely separated quarters of 
the world—Gentiles. Comp. Isa. xlv. 6 ; Mal. i. 11.—According to Jewish 
ideas, one of the main elements in the happiness of the Messianic kingdom 
was the privilege of participating in splendid festive entertainments along 
with the patriarchs of the nation.” Jesws employs the expression in a sym- 
bolical sense (xxvi. 29; Luke xiii. 28, xiv. 15; Rev. xix. 9; Matt. xxii. 
30 ; 1 Cor. xv. 50): many Gentiles will become believers, and so have their part 
in the blessings of the Messianic kingdom in happy fellowship with the patriarch, 
of the people of God.* WHilgenfeld sees in the whole narrative the milder 
comprehensive Judaeo-Christianity of the author of the revised Gospel ; 
but Keim again, while upholding the account in all other points, ascribes 
ver. 11 f. to the hand that framed the later version, although, with ver. 10, 
preparing the way for them, the words neither interrupt the connection nor 
clash with the then standpoint of Jesus (iii. 9), seeirg that in the Sermon 
on the Mount (especially vii. 21 f.) He has taken away from the kingdom of 
God anything like national limitation. 

Ver. 12. The sons of the kingdom : the Jews, in so far as, according to the 
divine promise, they have the right, as the theocratic people, to the Mes- 
siah’s kingdom (John iv. 22 ; Rom. ix. 4, 5, xi. 16 f.), and are, in conse- 
quence, its potential subjects. The article describes them, summarily, in a 
body, vidc, ja, as denoting physical or moral relationship.* The ¢trwe vioi r. 
Bac., who are so in point of fact, see xiii. 38. — 7 éFarepov] which is outside 


1 Observe with Bengel the “‘ sapientia fide- 
lis ex ruditate militari pulchre elucens,” 
“the wisdom of faith shining forth beau- 
tifully out of his military abruptness.” 

2 Bertholdt, Christol. p. 196. Schoettgen 
on this passage. 

3In sharp contrast to incarnate (iii. 9) 
Jewish pride, Tanchum (in Schoettgen): *‘ In 


mundo futuro, (dixit Deus) mensam ingen- 
tem vobis sternam, quod gentiles videbunt et 
pudefient,” “In the future world (God said) 
I will spread a great table for you, which 
the Gentiles shall see and be ashamed.” 
Bertholdt, p. 176. 

4 Winer, p. 223 [E. T. 298]. 


CHAP. VIII., 13-16. 181 


the (illuminated) Messianic banqueting hall.’ For the thing, see xxii. 18, xxv. 
30. It is not some special degree of infernal punishment that is represented 
to us (Grotius), but the punishments themselves, and that as poena damni et 
sensus at once. —6 kaAavOuoc . . . dd6vtTwv| indicating the wail of sufferings 
and the gnashing of teeth that accompanies despair. The article points to 
the well-known (kar’ éfoy#v) misery reigning in hell (xiii. 42, 50, xxii. 13, 
xxiv. 51, xxv. 30). Found in Luke only at xiii. 28, where the same expres- 
sion occurs on a different occasion,—a circumstance which is not in Luke’s 
favor (de Wette, Gfrérer), but is to be explained from the fact that Jesus 
made frequent use of the figure of the Messianic reclining at table, and of 
the expression regarding the infernal «AavOudc, ete. 

Ver. 13. ’Ev rH &pa éx.] Opa is emphatic. In the very hour in which Jesus 
was uttering these words, the slave became whole, and that through the 
divine power of Jesus operating upon him from a distance, as in John iv. 
46 ff. The narrative is to be explained neither by a desire to present an en- 
larging view of the miraculous power of Jesus (Strauss), nor as a parable 
(Weisse), nor as a historical picture of the way in which God’s word acts at a 
distance upon the Gentiles (Volkmar), nor as being the story of the woman 
of Canaan metamorphosed (Bruno Bauer); nor are we to construe the pro- 
ceeding as the providential fulfilment of a general but sure promise given by 
Jesus (Ammon), or, in that case, to have recourse to the supposition that 
the healing was effected through sending an intermediate agent (Paulus). 
But if, as is alleged, Jesus in His reply only used an affirmation which was 
halfway between a benediction depending on God and the faith of the house, 
and a positive act (Keim), it is impossible to reconcile with such vagueness of 
meaning the simple imperative and the no less impartial statement of the 
result. Moreover, there exists as little a psychical contact between the sick 
man and Jesus, as at the healing of the daughter of the woman of Canaan, 
xv. 22, but the slave was cured in consideration of the centurion’s faith. 

Ver. 14. Mark i. 29 ff., Luke iv. 38 ff., assign to the following narrative 
another and earlier position, introducing it immediately after the healing of 
a demoniac in the synagogue, which Matthew omits. The account in Mark 
is the original one, but in none of the reports are we to suppose the evan- 
gelists to be recording the earliest of Jesus’ works of healing (Keim). — 
ei¢ THv oikiav Ilétpov| in which also his brother Andrew lived along with him, 
Mark i. 29. Not inconsistent with John i. 45, as Peter was a native of Beth- 
saida, though he had removed to Capernaum. Whether the house belonged 
to him cannot be determined. — tiv revbepav airov| 1 Cor. ix. 5. 

Vv. 15, 16. Acyxdvec] at table, John xii. 2; Luke x. 40. There is a differ- 
ence, though an unimportant one, in Luke’s account (iv. 39) of the mode in 
which the miracle was performed. — diac dé yev.] with more precision in 
Mark and Luke, at sunset. Besides, in the present instance there is nothing 
of the special reference to the Sabbath which we find in Mark and Luke, 
but we are merely given to understand that Jesus remains in Peter’s house 


1 Wetstein on this passage, comp. on é¢férTepos, LXX. Ex. xxvi. 4, xxxvi. 10; Ezek. x. 5; 
not found in Greek authors. 


182 THE GOSPEL OF MATTHEW. 


till the evening (comp. on xiv. 15). By this time the report of the miracu- 
lous cure had spread throughout the whole place ; hence the crowds that 
now throng Him with their sick,—a fact which accords but ill with the 
attempt to destroy or weaken the supernatural character of the act (‘‘ miti- 
gating of the fever,” and that by gentle soothing words or a sympathetic 
touch of the hand, Keim, comp. Schenkel). — A¢éy»] without the use of any 
other means. 

Ver. 17. This expelling of demons and healing of diseases were intended, 
in pursuance of the divine purposes, to be a fulfilment of the prediction in 
Isa. lili. 4. Observe that this prophecy is fulfilled by Jesus in another 
sense also, viz., by His atoning death (John i. 29 ; 1 Pet. il. 24).—The pas- 
sage is quoted from the original (Hebrew) text, but not according to the 
historical meaning of that original, which would involve the necessity of 
representing the Messiah, in the present instance, as the atoning sin-bearer,* 
which, however, is not suited to the connection—but rather according to 
that special typical reference, which also seems to have been contemplated 
by that prediction when read in the light of the acts of healing performed 
by Jesus. At the same time, Aaufdavery and Baorafewy must not be taken in 
a sense contrary to that of SW and 530, to take away, to remove (de 
Wette, Bleek, Grimm) ; but when their ailments are taken away from the 
diseased, the marvellous compassionate one who does this stands forth as he 
who carries them away, and, as it were, bears the burden lifted from the 
shoulders of others. The idea is plastic, poetical, and not to be understood 
as meaning an actual personal feeling of the diseases thus removed. 

Ver. 18. Ei¢ ro répav|] from Capernaum across to the east side of the lake 
of Tiberias. He wished to retire. Instead of putting the statement in the 
pragmatic form (it is different in Mark iv. 35) adopted by Matthew, Luke 
vili. 22 merely says, Kai éyévero év pd Tov juepov. According to Baur, it is 
only the writer of the narrative who, in the historical transitions of this 
passage (here and ver. 28, ix. 1, 9, 14, 18), ‘‘ turns the internal connection 
of all those events into an outward connection as well.” 

Ver. 19. El¢ ypauparteic] Never, not even in passages like John vi. 9, Matt. 
xxi. 19, Rev. vill. 18,7 is cic equivalent to the indefinite pronoun ruc, to 
which the well-known use of cic tu¢ is certainly opposed, but is always 
found, and that in the N. T. as well, with a certain numerical reference, 
such as is also to be seen*® in the passages referred to in classical writers.* 
It is used (vi. 24) in the present instance in view of the érepoc about to be 
mentioned in ver. 21 ; for this ypayyareic, ver. 19, and the subsequent érepoc, 
were both of them disciples of Jesus. It is therefore to be interpreted thus: 
one, a scribe. It follows from ver. 21 that this ypauyarteic already belonged 
to the number of Jesus’ disciples in the more general sense of the word, but 
he now intimated his willingness to become one of His permanent and inti- 
mate followers.—The difference in time and place which, as regards the two 


1 See Kleinert in d. Stud. uv. Kit. 1862, p. 3 Blomfield, Gloss. in Persas, 333. 
(23 £. 4 Jacobs, ad Achill. Tat. p. 398, ad Anthol. 


2 In answer to Winer, p. 111 [E. T. p. 145]; XII. p. 455. 
Buttmann, neut. Gr. p. 74 [E. T, 85]. 


CHAP. VIII., 20. 183 
incidents, vv. 19-22 (in Mark they are omitted), is found in Luke ix. 57-60, 
is not to be removed. ‘The question as to which evangelist the preference 
is to be assigned in point of the historical faithfulness of his narrative, falls 
to be decided in favor of Matthew,’ as compared with the loose and indefi- 
nite account in Luke (Schleiermacher, Schneckenburger, Gfrérer, Olshausen, 
Arnoldi, Holtzmann), who, moreover, adds (ix. 61 f.) still a third, and 
doubtless no less historical an incident with which he had been made 
acquainted. Schleiermacher inaptly refers éxov dv arépyn to the various 
roads by which Jesus might travel to Jerusalem.” It is clear, however, 
from the fact of this narrative occurring so far on in Luke, that he cannot 
have supposed that the ypaupyarete was Judas Iscariot, and that the érepoc 
was Thomas (Lange). As far was he from supposing that the one was 
Bartholomew and the other Philip (Hilgenfeld), according to the discovery 
already made by Clement of Alexandria.—Observe, further, how quite dif- 
ferently Jesus answers the serive with his supposed claims as compared with 
the simple-minded érepo¢ (Ewald), and how in addressing the latter He 
merely says aKxoAobOer por. 

Ver. 20. Karacxyvesec| Places of abode, where, as in their quarters, so to 
speak,* they used to dwell.* Not nests specially. —6 vid¢ tod avbp.® Jesus, 
who thus designates Himself by this title (in Acts vii. 56 Stephen does so 
likewise), means nothing else by it than ‘‘the Messiah,” according to its 
significant prophetic characteristic, which, assuming it to be known to those 
whom He addressed, the Lord claims for Himself. But this self-chosen 
title, the expression of His full Messianic consciousness, is not founded,* not 
even in the first place, at least (Keim), upon Ps. viii. 5, seeing that evidence 
of a Messianic interpretation of this psalm is nowhere to be found in 
the New Testament (not even in Matt. xxi. 16). Still less again must we 
start with the well-known usage in Ezek. ii. 1, iii. 1 (Weizsiicker), which 
has nothing to do with the Messianic idea. Much rather is it to be traced, 
and, as specially appears from xxiv. 30, xxvi. 64, to be solely traced, to the 
impressive account of that prophetic vision, Dan. vii. 13, so familiar to the 
Jews (John xii. 34), and vividly reflected in the pre-Christian Book of 
Enoch,—a vision in which the Messiah appears in the clouds, ¥38 133, dc 
vide avAporov, surrounded by the angels that stand beside the throne of the 
divine Judge, i.¢c., in a form which, notwithstanding His superhuman 
heavenly nature, is not different from that of on ordinary man.?’- The whole 





1 Rettig in d. Stud. u. Krit. 1838, p. 240 ff. 

* Schleiermacher, Schrift. d. Luk. p. 169. 

3 Polybius, xi. 26. 5. 

4Comp. xiii. 32; Wisd. ix. 8; Tob. {. 4; 2 
Mace. xiv. 35. 

5 For the idea of the Son of man, see 
Scholten, de appell. rod viod r. avdpur. 1809 ; 
Bohme, Geheimniss d. Menschensohnes, 1839 ; 
Gass, de utroque J. Chr. nomine, 1840 ; Nebe, 
wb. d. Begr. des Namens 6 vids 7.-avdp. 1860; 
Baur in Hilgenfeld’s Zeifschr. 1860, p. 274 ff.; 
Hilgenfeld in his Zeitschr. 1863, p. 330 ff.; 
Holtzmann in the same Zeitschr. 1865, p. 


213 ff.; Schulze, vom Menschensohn u. v. 
Logos, 1867; Weissenbach, Jesu in regno 
coel. dignitas, 1868; Gess, Christi Person u. 
Werk, I. 1870, pp. 185 ff., 208 ff.; Keim; 
Gesch. Jesu, V1. p. 65 ff. ; Beyschlag, Christol. 
dad. N. T.p.9 ff.; Ewald, Gesch. Chr. p. 304 f., 
ed. 3; Wittichen, Jdee des Menschen, 1868; 
Holsten, z. Hv. d. Paul. u. Petr. 1868, p. 179 ff. ; 
Colani, J. Chr. et les croyances messian. p. 
112 ff., ed. 2; Weiss, did/. Theol. p. 53 ff., ed. 
2; Volkmar, @. Hvangelien, 1870, p. 197 ff. 

® Delitzsch, Kahnis, Dogm. I. p. 446. 

7 Hitzig, Schenkel, Keim understand by 


184 THE GOSPEL OF MATTHEW. 


depended, then, on whether those who were present when Jesus named 
Himself the Son of man would understand this predicate in Daniel’s sense or 
not. In himself, however, this Son of man, whose form had been delineated 
in Daniel’s vision, was Jesus Himself, as the historical reality, in so far as in 
His person He who there appeared in heavenly form had come down to earth. 
As often, therefore, as Jesus, in speaking of Himself, uses the words, ‘‘ the 
Son of man,” He means nothing else than ‘‘ the Son of man in that prophecy 
of Daniel,” i.e., the Messiah.’ But, behind the consciousness which led Him to 
appropriate to Himself this designation from Daniel, there was, at the same 
time, the correlative element of His divine Sonship, the necessary (in answer 
to Schleiermacher) conviction, more decidedly brought out in John, of His 
divine pre-existence (as Logos), the défa of which He had left behind, in 
order, as the heavenly personage in Daniel’s vision, é¢ vidc avOpadrov, to 
appear in a form of existence not originally belonging to Him. And so far 
those are right, who, following the Fathers, have recognized (Grotius contra- 
dicted by Calovius) the Pauline xévwore in this self-designation, based as it is 
upon the consciousness of His pre-existent divinity. Comp. Chrysostom on 
John ili. 18, where he says : Jesus has so named Himself ao rye éAdtTovo¢ 
ovoiac ; and Augustine, de consens. ev. li. 1, who observes : in this we are 
taught ‘‘ quid misericorditer dignatus sit esse pro nobis,” ‘‘ how pitifully he 
deemed it worthy of himself to be in our behalf.” It is to import ideas 
historically inconsistent with Dan, vii., when, in spite of the definite nature 
of the expression in Dan. vii. 13, it has been so understood as if Christ meant 
thereby to describe Himself as the man in the highest sense of the word, as the 


“the Son of man’ in Daniel, not the Mes- 
siah, but the people of Israel. This, however, 
is unquestionably wrong. See, onthe other 
hand, Ewald, Jahrb. III. p. 231 f. On the 
Son of man in the Book of Enoch, see Dill- 
mann, @d. B. Henoch, p. xx. ff.; Ewald, 
Gesch. Chr. p. 147; Weizsacker, p. 428; 
Weissenbach, p. 16 ff.; Wittichen, Zdee des 
Menschen, p. 66 ff. On insufficient grounds, 
Hilgenfeld is disposed to delete ch. xxxvii.- 
lxxi. of the Book of Enoch asa Christian 
interpolation. Comp. Rey. i. 13, xiv. 14; 
Hengstenberg, Christol. III. 1, p. 10 f.; 
Schulze, alttest. Theol. II. p. 3380 f.; Ewald, 
Gesch. Chr. p. 146 ff.; Schulze, p. 26 ff. ; 
Weissenbach, p. 14 ff. 

1 Mark viii. 27 ff., where the settled faith 
of the disciples is contrasted with the views 
of the people, is plainly a very decisive 
passage (in answer to Weisse, Hvangelien- 
Srage, p. 212 f.) in favor of the Messianic 
nature of the expression ; for in ver. 31 of 
that chapter 6 vids tod avdpwrov is evidently 
identical with o Xproros, ver. 80. On John 
xii. 34, see the notes on that passage. Comp. 
also on Matt. xvi. 13, which passage, ac- 
cording to Hofmann, Weiss. vu. Hrf. Il. p. 
19, Schriftbew. Il. 1, p.'79, and Kahnis, is 
also supposed to contradict our explanation 


of the vids tod avdpwHmrov. Only let it be 
carefully observed that the expression, 
‘‘the Son of man,” is not directly synony- 
mous with “ the Messiah,”’ but acquired this 
definite meaning for others only when first 
they came to refer it, in Daniel’s sense, to 
Jesus, so that it did not immediately involve 
the idea of ‘“‘the Messiah,” but came to do 
so through the application, on the part of 
believers, of Daniel’s prophetic vision. 
But we must avoid ascribing to this self- 
designation any purpose of concealment 
(Ritschl in d. theolog. Jahrb. 1851, p. 514; 
Weisse, Wittichen, Holtzmann, Colani, 
Hilgenfeld), all the more that Jesus so 
styles Himself inthe hearing of His disci- 
ples (already in John i. 52). Comp. with 
Mark ii. 8. And He so names Himself in 
the consciousness that in Him the above 
prediction has been fulfilled. For those, in- 
deed, who did not share this belief, this 
designation of Himself continued, as well 
it might, to be mysterious and unintelligi- 
ble, as xvi. 13. But to suppose that Jesus 
has chosen it ‘“‘to avoid the consequences 
of a haphazard Messianic title’ (Holtz- 
mann), would be to impute a calculating 
reserve which would scarcely be consistent 
with His character. 


CHAP. VIII., 20. 185 


second Adam, as the ideal of humanity,’ or as the man toward whon, as its 
aim, the whole history of humanity since Adam has been tending,” or as the 
true man renewed after the image of God (Schenkel), as He who is filled with 
the whole fulness of God (Colani), and such like. Fritzsche supposes Jesus 
to have meant, jilius ille parentum humanorum, qui nune loquitur, homo ille, 
quem bene nostis, i.e., ego, ‘‘ that Son of human parents, who now speaks, 
that man whom you well know, 2.e., I,” and that, on the strength of Dan. 
vii. 13, the Christians were the first to ascribe to the words the signification 
of Messiah. This would only be conceivable if 6 vide rov avOpdrov had 
happened to be a current self-designation in general, in which case it would 
not be necessary to presuppose a special historical reason why Jesus should 
so frequently have used the title in reference to Himself. Consequently 
Baur is likewise in error in thinking that the expression denotes the man as 
such who stands aloof from nothing human, and esteems nothing human foreign 
to himself. In like manner Holtzmann’s view, viz. that Jesus intends to 
describe His central place in the circle of the vioi tov avéporwy, is at vari- 
ance with the original phrase as used in Daniel, and rests upon inferences 
from expressions which Jesus, while designated as above, has used in ref- 
erence to Himself, which predicates, however, cannot determine the mean- 
ing of the subject. This, at the same time, in answer to Weizsiicker, p. 428 
ff., who thinks that by that expression Jesus had endeavored to bring 
His followers to a higher spiritual conception of the Messiah, for whom it 
was possible to appear without royal splendor. In 6 vide tov avOp. He 
describes Himself as the great Messiah, and that in the form of a human 
life, but not specially as the lowly, self-humbling servant of humanity (Keim), 
or he who is intimately bound up with humanity (Gess, I. p. 186). Accord- 
ing to the corresponding passages elsewhere, ideas of this sort are found 
first to emerge in predicates, and, as a rule, in the course of the context ; 
which, however, is not the case here, where the main point is the contrast, 
as seen in the fact that He who is that Son of man of the prophet’s vision has 
not where to lay His weary head. Finally, Holsten asserts what is contrary 
to the whole Christology of the New Testament, as well as irreconcilable 
with Rom. i. 3 f., when he says that as Messiah of the aiav oiroc, Jesus is 
Daniel’s vide rod avOpdrov, and that as Messiah of the future aidv He passes over 
into the form of existence belonging to the vid¢ rov deot, which latter He is in 
this present era of time, as being the Son of man, destined to become the 
Son of God. In the analysis of the phrase, tov avOpdrov is to be understood 
neither of Adam (Gregory Nazianzen, Erasmus) nor of the Virgin Mary 
(Euth. Zigabenus), but, according to Dan. J.c., to be taken generically ; so 
that, as far as the essential meaning goes, it is in no way different from the 
anarthrous avopérov in Daniel. — rod tiv keg. KAivy] i.€., a resting-place, a sleep- 
ing-place which He can call His own. Of course an evidence of poverty (in 
contrast to the earthly aims of the scribe, which the eye of Jesus had fully 


1 Herder, BOhme, Neander, Ebrard, Ols- 2 Hofmann, Schriftbew. II. 1, p. 81; Tho- 
hausen, Kahnis, Gess, Lange, Weisse, masius, Chr, Per. u. Werk, II. p. 15. 
Beyschlag, Wittichen. 


186 THE GOSPEL OF MATTHEW. 


penetrated), but of that which is connected with an unsettled life, which is 
not necessarily to be identified with want (John xiii. 29, xii. 5, xix. 23). 

Ver. 21. Tév pafyrov| of His disciples, in the more general sense of the 
words. This is evident from érepoc, which (see note on ver. 19) places him 
whom it represents in the same category with the scribe. According to 
Luke ix. 59, the érepoc is not spoken of as wafyrjc, and is summoned by Jesus 
to follow Him, which is to be regarded as an altered form of the tradition. — 
mparov| in the first place, before I follow thee, vv. 19, 22. — Aaya] It was, 
and, to some extent, is still the practice of the Jews, to bury their dead on 
the very day on which they die, Matt. ix. 23, Acts v. 7 f. ; and it was the - 
sacred duty of sons to attend to the obsequies of their parents. Gen. xxv. 
9; Tob. iv. 3 ; Schoettgen, Horae, on this passage. 

Ver. 22. Tote vexpoic . . . vexpovc} The first vexp. (not the second likewise, 
as Weisse improperly holds) denotes the spiritually dead (comp. on iv. 16, 
on John y. 21, 25, and on Luke xv. 24), who are without the spiritual life 
that comes through Christ.*| The second literally ; the dead belonging to 
their own circles. Fritzsche (comp. Kaeuffer, de not. Cayce aiwy. p. 34) inter- 
prets literally in both cases : let the dead bury themselves among one another, 
as a paradox by way of refusing the request. What a meaningless view of 
Jesus’ thoughtful way of putting it! The seeming harshness of Jesus’ reply 
(in answer to Weisse, Bruno Bauer) must be judged of by considering the 
necessity which he saw of decided and immediate separation, as compared 
with the danger of the contrary (Chrysostom) ; comp. x. 37. Moreover, it 
is to be inferred from dkodoifec wor. Comp. with Luke ix. 60, that this 
pablytae proceeded at once to follow the Lord, while that ypaypyarebc of ver. 
19 probably went away like the rich young man mentioned in xix. 22. 

Ver. 23 ff. Comp. Mark iv. 36 ff. ; Luke viii. 22 ff.— 1d Avior] the boat 
standing ready to convey them over, ver. 18.—oi pafyrai] not the Twelve in 
contrast to the multitude, ver. 18 (Fritzsche), which is forbidden by ix. 9, 
but His disciples generally, who, as appears from the context, are in the 
present instance those who had joined themselves more closely to Him, and 
were following Him, as the scribe also of ver. 19 and the person indicated 
in ver. 21 had declared their willingness to do. 

Vv. 24, 25. Sescudc] Agitation, specially in the sense of earthquake, here: 
storm (Jer. xxiii. 19 ; Nah. i. 3). —xadtrrecfa:| The waves were dashing 
over the boat. —avro¢g dé éxdbevde| but He Himself was sleeping, contrasting 
with the dangerous position of the boat in which He was.* — céoov, aroAdbiueba] 
Asyndeton indicating urgent alarm, and this alarm with Jesus present was 
the ground of His rebuke.—On the situation of the lake, as rendering it 
liable to gusts,and storms, see Robinson.* 

Ver. 26. ’Eretiunoe|] increpuit, on account of the unseasonable fury of its 
waves. Similarly 14, Ps. cvi. 9; Nah. i.4.* This rebuking of the elements’ 
(at which Schleiermacher took special offence) is the lively plastic poetry, 


1 Origen in Cramer’s Catena: pux7 ev Kakia 2 “Securitas potestatis,’’ Ambrose. 
ova vexpa eoruy, ** asoul being in wickedness 3 Pal. Il. p. 571; Ritter, #rdk. XV. p. 308. 
is dead.” 4 Comp. xvii. 18 ; Luke iv. 39. 


CHAP. VIIL., 27: 187 


not of the author of the narrative, but of the mighty Ruler. —On rére 
Bengel observes : ‘‘Animos discipulorum prius, deinde mare composuit,” 
‘‘He calmed the minds of His disciples first, and then the sea.” Unques- 
tionably more original than Mark and Luke ; not a case of transforming 
into the miraculous (Holtzmann). The miraculous does not appear till 
after the disciples have been addressed. — yadgjvy péy.| Ver. 24. cecoude 
fey. — Here was a greater than Jonas, xii. 41. 

Ver. 27. Oi dvOpwro] Meaning the people who, besides Jesus and His disciples, 
were also in the boat, not the disciples’ included (de Wette, Baumgarten- 
Crusius, Bleek), seeing that the specially chosen dv@pwr0. (Matthew does 
not at all say xavrec) most naturally denotes other parties than those pre- 
viously mentioned, viz. ‘‘ quibus nondum innotuerat Christus,” ‘‘ to whorh 
Christ had not yet become known,” Calvin. Fritzsche’s homines quotquot 
hujus portenti nuntium acceperant, ‘‘themen, however many (they were who) 
had received tidings of this marvel,” is incorrect. From the nature of the 
case, and by means of the connection with ver. 28, Matthew represents 
the astonishment and the exclamation as coming immediately after the still- 
ing of the tempest, and in the boat itself. — ér:] seeing that. Giving the 
reason for the roraréc (qualis, see on Mark xiii. 1).—The narrative itself 
must not be traced to a misconception on the part of the disciples, who are sup- 
posed either to have attributed the cessation of the storm to the presence of 
Jesus and His observations regarding this condition of the weather (Paulus), 
or to have misapprehended the Lord’s command to be still, addressed to the 
storm within them at the moment when that which raged without was over 
(Hase). As little should we have recourse to a symbolical explanation of the 
fact, as though it had been intended to exhibit the superiority of the friend 
of God to the war of the elements (Ammon), or to represent the tranquillity 
of the inner life that is brought about by the spirit of Christ (Schleiermacher). 
But if Strauss has classed the narrative in the category of mythical sca 
stories, Keim again, though feeling sure that it is founded upon fact, is 
nevertheless of opinion that the actual event has been retouched, beyond 
recognition, with the coloring and in the spirit of the psalms (such as cvi., 
cvii.), while Weizsiicker sees in it nothing more than an evidence of the 
spiritual power with which, in a case of outward distress, Jesus so works 
upon the faith of His disciples that they see themselves transported into a 
world of miracles ; the miracle, he thinks, resolves itself into the extraor- 
dinary impression produced by what had taken place. Itis to do manifest 
violence to the clear and simple account of the Gospels, to adopt such expedi- 
ents for divesting the narrative of its supernatural character, as Schenkel also 
has had recourse to, who thinks that, after the pilot had despaired, Jesus, 
with assured confidence in His destiny, stood up, and, after rebuking and 


1 According to Mark iv. 41, Luke viii. 25, that what the exclamation asked the disci- 


it was the disciples who uttered the excla- ples already knew. Moreover, the prefer- 
mation. Possibly a more original part of ence, in all essential respects, is due to 
the tradition than the statement in Mat- Matthew’s account; comp. Weiss in d. 


thew, which presupposes a wider reflection Stud. u. Krit. 1865, p. 344. 
than Mark’s account, that statement being 


188 THE GOSPEL OF MATTHEW. 


allaying the fears of those around Him, assumed to Himself the direction of 
the boat. The text renders it necessary to insist on treating the event 
(Neander, Steinmeyer) as miraculous—as a proceeding the cause of which is 
to be found in the divine energy dwelling in the Lord (Luke xi. 20)—in a 
powerful exercise of His authority over the elements, which there should be 
no more difficulty in admitting than in the case of His other miracles in the 
sphere of nature (the feeding, Cana) and upon’ the bodily organism (even 
when dead). 

Ver. 28 ff.’— Tepacyver] Since Gerasa, the eastern frontier town of Peraea,? 
which Origen and others look upon as even belonging to Arabia, stood much 
too far to the south-east of the Sea of Tiberias, as the ruins of the town also 
still prove ;* since, further, the reading Tepyecyvév has the preponderance of 
testimony against it, and since that reading has gained currency, if not 
solely on the strength of Origen’s conjecture,‘ at least mainly on the strength 
of his evidence ; since, again, no trace is found of a Gergesa cither as town 
(Origen : mdAc¢ apyaia) or as village (Ebrard),° expressly stating that of the 
ancient Tepyecaio. (Gen xvi. 21, x. 16; Deut. viii. 1; Josh. xxiv. 11) 
nothing remains but their names ; since, finally, the reading Tadapyvay has 
important testimony in its favor (see the critical remarks), being also con- 
firmed by Origen, though only as found év dAiyorc, and harmonizes with 
geographical facts,—we are therefore bound to regard that as the original 
reading, whilst Tepacyvév and Tepyecyvdy must be supposed to owe their ori- 
gin to a confusion in the matter of geography. Even apart from the author- 
ity of Origen, the latter reading came to be accepted and propagated, all the 
more readily from the circumstance that we are made acquainted with actual 
Gergesenes through the Old Testament. On Gadara, at present the village 
of Omékeis, at that time the capital of Peraea,® standing to the south-east 
of the southern extremity of the Sea of Tiberias, between the latter and 
the river Mandhur, consult Ritter,’ Riietschi in Herzog,* Kneucker in 
Schenkel.? According to Paulus, who defends Tepacyvév, the district 
of Gerasa, like the ancient Gilead, must have extended as far as the 
lake ; the zé/u, however, vv. 33, 34, he takes to have been Gadara, as 
being the nearest town. The context makes this impossible. — dio] Accord- 
ing to Mark and Luke, only one. This difference in the tradition (ix. 
27, xx. 30) is not to be disposed of by conjectures (Ebrard, Bleek, Holtz- 
mann think that, as might easily enough have happened, Matthew com- 
bines with the healing of the Gadarenes that of the demoniacs in the 
synagogue at Capernaum, Mark i. 23 ff.), but must be allowed to remain as 
itis. At the same time, it must also be left an open question whether 
Matthew, with his brief and general narrative (Strauss, de Wette), or Mark 





1Comp. Mark y. 1 ff.; Luke viii. 26 ff. de la Rue. 


Comp. Ewald, Jahrb. VII. p. 54 ff. 5 Josephus, in fact, Antt. i. 6. 2. 
2 Joseph. Bell. iii. 3. 3, iv. 9. 1. 6 Joseph. Bell. iv. 7. 3. 
3 Dieterici, Reisebilder aus d. Morgenl. 7 Erdk. XV. p. 875 ff. 

1853, I. p. 275 ff.; Rey, Voyage dans le 8 Encykl. IV. p. 636 f. 

THaouran, 1860. ® Bibellex. Il. p. 318 ff. 


4 On John i. 28, ii. 12; Opp. iy. p. 140, ed. 


CHAP. VIII., 29-31. 189 


and Luke (Weisse), with their lively, graphic representations, are to be 
understood as giving the more original account. However, should the 
latter prove to be the case, as is probable at least from the peculiar features 
in Mark," it is not necessary, with Chrysostom, Augustine, Calvin, to hit upon 
the arbitrary method of adjustment implied in supposing that there were 
no doubt two demoniacs, but that the one—whom Mark (and Luke) accord- 
ingly mentions—was far more furious than the other. According to Strauss 
and Keim, the change to the singular has had the effect of giving a higher 
idea of the extraordinary character of a case of possession by so many 
demons ; Weisse and Schenkel hold the reverse ; Weiss thinks the number 
two owes its origin to the fact of there having been a great many demons. 
Mere groundless conjectures.—The demoniacs are /unatics, furious to a high 
degree ; they took up their abode among the tombs (natural or artificial 
grottoes in the rocks or in the earth) that were near by, driven thither by 
their own melancholy, which sought gratification in gloomy terrors and in 
the midst of impurity,? and which broke out into frenzy when any one hap- 
pened to pass by. Many old burial vaults are still to be seen at the place 
on which Gadara formerly stood. [See note VII., p. 191 seq. ] 

Ver. 29. Ti juiv x. coi] See on John ii. 4. The demons, according to their 
nature, already recognize in Jesus, the Messiah, their mighty and most dan- 
gerous enemy.* — mpd kaipov| prematurely, i.e., before the Messianic judgment 
(xxv. 41). — Bacavica juac| to hurl us, as servants of Satan, down to the tor- 
ments of Hades.* The lunatics identify themselves with the demons by 
whom they are possessed. It is plain, however, from their very language 
that they were Jews, and not Gentiles (Casaubon, Neander). 

Ver. 30. Maxpav] relative idea, therefore not incompatible with éxei in Mark 
v. 11; Luke viii. 832 (Wilke, Holtzmann).—Seeing the Jews were forbidden 
(Lightfoot) to keep swine, as being unclean animals, the herd must either 
have been the property of Gentile owners, or been the subject of Jewish 
trade. — Bocxouévy| not to be connected with jv, but with ayéan. 

Ver. 31. Hic . . . yoipwr| They mean : into the bodies of the swine that were 
feeding. To the unclean spirits in the possessed Jews, anticipating, as they 
certainly do, their inevitable expulsion, it appears desirable, as well as most 
easily attainable, that they should find an abode for themselves in impure 
animals.°—:'The request implies that the demoniacs considered themselves to 
be possessed by a multitude of evil spirits, a circumstance noticed in detail 
by Mark and Luke, from which, however, it may be inferred that the form 
of the tradition is not the same as the one made use of in our Gospel. The 
former is so peculiar, that, had Matthew only abridged it (Ewald), he would 
scarcely have omitted so entirely its characteristic features. On the contrary, 
he followed another version of the story which he happened to light upon, 
and which likewise mentioned two demoniacs instead of one ; comp. on ver. 


1 Comp. Weiss, op. cit., p. 342. Bengel. 
2 Lightfoot in doc., and on xvii. 15; Schoett- 4 Luke xvi. 23; Rev. xiv. 10, xx. 10. 
gen, p. 92; Wetstein in Joc. 5 Risenmenger, entdecktes Judenth. II. p. 


3 And “cum ferrore appellant filium Dei,”’ 447 f. 
“and with terror they callhim Son of God,” 


190 THE GOSPEL OF MATTHEW. 

28. Probably this is also the source to which we are to trace the expression 
daiuovec, Which does not occur anywhere else in Matthew, and which in 
Mark v. 12 is of doubtful critical authority. 

Ver. 32. "EgeA0d6vtec anpAVov, x.t.A.] therefore the demons who, quitting 
those who were possessed, enter the bodies of the swine. The idea that the 
demoniacs ran away among the swine is opposed to the narrative. — kai idod, 
Opunoe, k.T.A.] in consequence of the demons taking possession of the ani- 
mals, and thereby producing in them a state of fury corresponding to that 
which had been excited in the men. 

Vv. 33, 34. Ilavra kai, x.7.4.] They reported everything, and especially how 
it had fared from first to last with the two demoniacs (xxi. 21). — aca 7 
méauc] the Gadarenes. See ver. 28. — rapexddecav, bruc¢ pevaBy, x.7.A.] The 
subject of the request is conceived as the aim in asking (xiv. 36 ; Mark v. 
10).—The motive for the request was fear lest a greater disaster should follow. 


ReMARK.—Seeing that all the attempts that have been made to evade the force 
of this narrative—such as saying that the demoniacs themselves had rushed in 
among the swine, or that the herd perished through some accidental and un- 
known circumstance (Neander), or that in the eicépyecfar we have merely to 
think of an operating in some way or other upon the animals as a whole (Ols- 
hausen)—run counter to what is clearly recorded, nothing remains but either 
to take the whole account as real history, and just as it stands (Krabbe, Ebrard, 
Delitzsch, bibl. Psychol. p. 296 ff.; Klostermann, Markusevang. p. 101 ff. ; 
Steinmeyer, apolog. Beitr. I. p. 144 ff.), in which case it will be necessary to 
dispose of objections in the best way possible,! or else to admit the existence of 
legendary elements, and then eliminate them, The latter course is imperative 


1Paulus and Strauss object that the that what happened was by way of testing 


demons would have acted the part of very 
silly devils, if they had gone so far as im- 
mediately to destroy again their new 
abodes. It is observed by Ebrard, on the 
other hand, that they were unable to con- 
trol their wicked desires, or (on Olshausen, 
p. 306) that the shock to the nervous system 
of the animals was so much greater than 
was expected. Theophylact and Euth. 
Zigabenus suppose that their intention was 
to do damage to the owners, that they 
might not be disposed to welcome Jesus. 
Some explain one way and others another. 
In reply to the objection founded on the 
morality of the thing, Ebrard (comp. 
Wetstein) pleads the absolute right of the 
Son of God, and that the object was to pun- 
ish the Gadarenes for their avarice. Simi- 
larly Luther. Comp. Bengel: “vei erant 
Gergeseni amittendi gregis ; jus et potestatem 
Jesu res ipsa ostendit,” ‘‘the Gergesenes 
were guilty and deserved to lose the herd: 
the fact itself shows the right and authority 
of Jesus;” so Olshausen, coupling with 
his own the opinion of Theophylact. 
Schegg contents himself with supposing 


the Gadarenes, to see whether, to them, the 
possession of eternal was of more conse- 
quence than the loss of temporal things, 
therefore a matter of discipline and to 
awaken faith ; comp. Arnoldiand Ullmann, 
Stindlosigk. p. 176. Bleek thinks the whole 
question of the morality is one with which 
he is not called upon to deal, inasmuch as 
the destruction was not the doing of Jesus, 
but of the lunatic. According to Stein- 
meyer, it was not the doing of the demons, 
but ofthe animals. The only way of decid- 
ing this questionis to reply that, according 
to the text, it was not the demoniaes but the 
demons that caused the destruction of the 
swine—a result which Jesus did not antici- 
pate. Otherwise it is vain to try further to 
help matters by the view that it was the Re- 
deemer offering Himself to deliver from the 
power of Satan and calling for the feeling 
that nothing was too dear to sacrifice for 
the sake of this deliverance (Klostermann), 
in violation of that principle of justice 
which forbids the use of means so flagrantly 
unrighteous to attain a holy end. 


NOTE. 191 


and inevitable if we are not to look upon the condition of the demoniaes as a 
case of possession at all (see on iy. 24, note). According to this view of the 
matter, Jesus is supposed to have cured the two maniacs by means of His won- 
derful power, transmitting its influence through a humoring of their capri- 
cious fancies, and that this yielding to their request to be allowed to enter the 
swine may have led in a subsequent form of the tradition—a tradition, at the 
same time, which did not require to be assisted by the supposed recollection 
of some disaster to a herd of swine that happened about the same time on that 
side of the lake—to the statement being added about the drowning of the whole 
herd, which addition might take place all the more readily from the fact that 
swine were unclean and forbidden animals, and considering also how much is 
often due to the play of popular wit (Ewald), which, in the death of the swine, 
would pretend to see the demons going down at length to the hell they feared 
somuch. Strangely enough, Lange, L.J. II. p. 661, inserts in the text that the 
hideous yell of the demoniac in his last paroxysm has acted like an electric shock 
upon the herd. Ewald likewise supposes that the last fearful convulsions of 
the sufferer just before he was quieted may have occasioned such a terror as 
might readily communicate itself toa whole herd. But in this affair of the 
demons, not one of the three accounts says anything whatever about last con- 
vulsions and such like. Yet Schenkel, too, boldly asserts that, just before the 
cure took place, there were violent outbursts of the malady, which threw a herd 
of swine into a panic, and sent them rushing into the water. Keim, on the 
other hand, favors the view that ‘‘the introduction of the four-footed beasis owes 
its origin to legend, inasmuch as it sought to expound the healing from the life, 
and with bitter mockery of the Jews to explain and avenge the banishing of 
Jesus from the district.” If this is to ascribe too much to legend,—too much 
to invention and wit, had not, indeed, the presence of a herd offered a handle 
for it,—then, to say the least of it, Weizsicker followed the more cautious 
course when he abandoned the idea of finding out the fact on which the obscure - 
reminiscence may probably have been founded,— although, when we consider 
the essential uniformity of the three evangelic narratives in other respects, the 
obscurity, if we keep out of view the difference in the naming of the locality, 
mmay not appear sufficiently great to warrant such entire abandonment. 


Notre py AmeErtcan Eprror. 


WADE, 


Tn construing the meaning of the accounts of demoniacal possession contained 
in this and other passages of the synoptists, our choice lies between the theory 
of accommodation and the acceptance of the verity of the record. But the ob- 
jections to the theory of accommodation are so weighty that they cannot be fully 
overcome. The supposition that Jesus cured the two demoniacs ‘“‘ by means of 
His wonderful power, transmitting its influence through the humoring of 
their capricious fancies,’’ impeaches His veracity. Trench reminds us that ‘in 
His most confidential discourses with His disciples, our Lord uses the same lan- 
guage” in relation to demoniacal possession as He does when addressing the 
people (see especially Matt. x. 8, where casting out devils is included in His 
charge to the Twelve), ‘‘ The allegiance,’ says this writer, ‘‘ we owe to Christ 


192 THE GOSPEL OF MATTHEW. 


as the King of truth, who came, not to fall in with men’s errors, but to deliver 
men out of their errors, compels us to believe that He would never have used 
language which would have upheld and confirmed so great an error in the 
minds of men as the supposition of Satanic influences, which did not in truth 
exist. For this error, if it was an error, was so little an innocuous one, that 
might have been safely left to drop naturally away, was, on the contrary, one” 
which reached so far in its consequences, entwined its roots so deeply among 
the very ground truths of religion, that it could never have been suffered to re- 
main at the hazard of all the misgrowths which it must needs have occasioned.” ! 

In view of this difficulty, the theory of accommodation has been variously 
modified. Thus Neander draws a distinction between material and formal accom- 
modation, the latter being moral, the former wholly immoral. But his applica- 
tion of this distinction is by no means satisfactory. For, in regard to Christ's 
humoring of the opinions *‘ which the demoniacs themselves had of their own 
condition,” he says, ‘‘the law of veracity in the intercourse of beings in pos- 
session of reason does not hold good where the essential conditions of rational 
intercourse are done away.’’? This might apply, if Christ had used the language 
of accommodation in speaking to demoniacs only ; but He used the same terms 
in speaking to persons in their rational senses, e.g. the Twelve and the Phari- 
sees, At best this supposition leaves on our minds a painful impression of the 
character of our Lord, whom we believe to be Tur TrurH. Neander admits 
that the starting-point of demoniacal possession is the dominion of the king- 
dom of evil and its king over the minds of the possessed persons. But when 
he admits this much, he is but one step short of admitting the literal truth of 
the gospel narrative, and his distinction here between material and formal ac- 
commodation becomes unnecessary. He himself says, ‘‘If it could be proved 
that Christ had only taken up the doctrine of the existence of Satan by way of 
formal accommodation,the question of the demoniacs would beat once decided.” + 
- Most certainly ; and it may be said conversely, it being proved that Christ un- 
equivocally affirmed the personal existence of Satan, the literal truth of the gos- 
pels in relation to demoniacs is at once determined. 

The objections of Dr. Meyer to the acceptance of literal truth of this and 
other accounts in the gospels of demoniacal possession are summed up in the note 
to his comment on Matt. iv. 24, The most important of these is (4) the silence 
of John in regard to all such cases. This argument, however, proves too much ; 
for it is just as valid against the credibility of the synoptical account of Christ’s 
Galilean ministry, which is omitted by John. Moreover, John admits Satanic 
possession (ch. xiii. 27), and quotes without remark the language of the Jews, 
which charged on Christ that he had a devil (dacudvior). 

Both Trench and Neander‘'find the explanation of the prevalence of demoniacal 
possession in the character of the age, and this furnishes an answer to another 
objection of Dr. Meyer, that there are no instances of demoniacal possession 
in modern times. ‘‘If there was anything that marked,’’ says Trench, ‘the 
period of the Lord’s coming in the flesh and that immediately succeeding, it 
was the wreck and confusion of men’s spiritual life which was then, the sense of 
utter disharmony, the hopelessness, the despair which must have beset every man 
that thought at all—this, with the tendency to rush with a frantic eagerness into 


1 Miracles of our Lord, pp. 126, 127. 3 Tbid., p. 148, note. 
2 Life of Christ, Amer. ed., pp. 149, 150. 4Tbid., pp. 145-151. 


NOTE. 193 


sensual enjoyments as the refuge from despairing thoughts. That whole period 
was the hour and power of darkness—of a darkness which then, immediately 
before the dawn of a new day, was the thickest. The world was again a chaos, 
and the creative words, ‘ Let there be light,’ though just about to be spoken, as 
yet were not uttered. It was exactly the crisis for such soul maladies as 
these, in which the spiritual and bodily should be thus strangely interlinked, 
and it is nothing wonderful that they should have abounded at that time ; for 
the predominance of certain spiritual maladies at certain epochs of the world’s 
history, which were specially fitted for their generation, with their gradual 
decline and disappearance in others less congenial to them, is a fact itself 
admitting no manner of question.”’ ! 

Planck also, who admits that our Lord and other inspired teachers did accom- 
modate themselves to imperfect or erroneous ideas of the people, yet hesitates to 
affirm this of demoniacal possession. He admits that it is never justifiable on 
the principles of hermeneutics to ‘‘apply the doctrine of accommodation to any 
passage, unless it can be historically shown that the passage does really con- 
tain an opinion prevalent at the time, and, further still, unless it can be proved 
from internal evidence that this prevalent opinion is erroneous.” * He concludes, 
therefore, that ‘‘ our Lord and His apostles may have been governed by certain 
opinions of their time, not merely because they were opinions of their time, 
but because, according to their own convictions, the views which they afforded 
were true, correct, and well founded. Thus He may have spoken so often of 
demons, not merely because the people believed in their existence, but because 
He believed init Himself; and therefore it is possible that He has not, in this 
matter, accommodated to the popular ideas, and it must therefore be allowed 
to be possible that by His declarations He has Himself attested their existence, 
and that it was His intention to attest it.”? It will not do therefore for those 
who find an accommodation to popular opinion in this and like passages of the 
gospels to assume the thing to be proved—namely, that the belief in demo- 
niacal possession is an ancient error, wholly repugnant to reason. 


1 Trench, Miracles of our Lord, p. 134. 
2 “ Sacred Philology,’ Clark’s Biblical Cabinet, p. 160. 3 Tbid., p. 162. 


194 THE GOSPEL OF MATTHEW. 


CHAPTER IX. 


Ver. 2. ddéwvrar] Lachm. Tisch. 8: agievrac (also ver, 5), only according to B 
8, Or. (once). On the other hand, oov ai duaptia: (Lachm. Tisch.) for cor ai au. 
is certainly supported by important testimony, but suspected, however, of 
being taken from ver. 5. — Ver. 4. idév] Lachm.: eidic, according to B M E** 
II* Curss. Verss. Chrys.; a gloss. Comp. xii. 25; Luke vi. 8,—Ver. 5. cov] 
Elz.: cou, against decisive testimony. —éyespac] There is decisive testimony 
for éyepe. Adopted by Scholz, Lachm. Tisch. Correctly ; see the exegetical 
notes. In all the passages in which éye:pe occurs, there is found, as a diff. 
reading, éyespar. — Ver. 6. tyep9ei¢] Lachm.; according to B, Vulg. Codd. of the 
It. : éyecpe. Mechanical repetition from ver. 5. Comp. Mark ii. 11. — Ver. 8. 
égoB7jOnoav] so also Lachm. and Tisch., according to B D &, Curss. Verss. (also 
Vulg. It.)and Fathers. é@atuacav of the Received text is a gloss. — Ver. 9. 
HKOAOVOnGEV] Tisch. 8: #KoAovHer, on.the too slender authority of D S and three 
Curss. — Ver. 12. The omission of “Ijcotvc, favored by Lachm. and Tisch. 
8, rests on too slender authority; while that of aitoic, which Lachm. and 
Tisch. leave out, has a preponderance of evidence in its favor. — Ver. 13. 
édeov| Lachm. and Tisch. : éAeog ; see the exegetical notes. — dwaptwiovc] Elz., 
Fritzsche, and Scholz insert ei¢ peravoray, which BD V* T* A 8, Curss. Vulg. 
It. Syr. utr. Perss. Aeth. al. and several Fathers omit. Supplement from Luke 
v. 82. — Ver. 14. zoAAa] although deleted by Tisch. 8 (only according to B S* 
and three Curss.), has decisive testimony. — Ver. 17. arodotvra:] Lachm. Tisch. 
8: ardéAdvvra, after B &, Curss. Verss. The present is due to the other verbs 
around it. — ayuddrepor] Elz. : auddtepa, against decisive testimony. A correc- 
tion. — Ver. 18. ei¢ éAfov] Elz. : éA4@dv, only after Curss. ; others : eiceAQdv ; 
others ; ti¢ eiceANdv ; others : tic 2A9év 3 others : ruc (or cic) tpooeAGov ; Lachm.: 
elc mpoceANdv, after B &**. In the original, stood EIZEA9QN.!—Ver. 19. 
Tisch. 8. (comp. on ver. 9) has 7xoAovée:, after B C D, — Ver. 30, Lachm.; 
Tisch. have the rare Alexand. form éve8piun$n, which has B* & in its favor, 
and was replaced by the more usual éveBpiyyoaro. — Ver. 35, padaxiav] Elz. in- 
serts év Tw Aa@, against B C* D S A &**, Curss., and several versions and 
Fathers. Supplement from iv, 23.—Ver. 36. éoxvAuévor] Elz.: éxaeAvuévor. 
The former, on which the latter is a gloss, rests on decisive testimony, 


Vv. 1 ff. Mark ii. 1 ff., Luke v. 17 ff., introduce the account somewhat 
earlier. Matthew reports, briefly and simply, only the essential points, 
following, it may be, an older form of the tradition. — Tyv idiav réAw] 
Capernaum.? See iv. 13. 


1 But whether eis éAdav (Griesb. Scholz, vaovn, ‘‘the city which bore Him was 
Kuinoel, Fritzsche) or cioeAdov (Tisch.) Bethlehem ; the one which nurtured Him 
should be written, see the exegetical notes. was Nazareth; the one in which He dwelt 

23) bev yap nveyxey avtov » Byddden: 7 6€ Was Capernaum,” Chrysostom. 
edpewev 9 NaCaper o 6& ciyev oixovvtTa Kazep- 


CHAP. IX., 2-5. 195 

Vv. 2, 3. Avrév] the paralytic, and those who were carrying him. — réxvov] 
affectionately ; Mark ii. 5, x. 24; Luke xvi. 25, and elsewhere. !— agéwvtac| 
are forgiven,? avéwvtat,® with davetvra (so Biihr), however, as a different 
reading. The view that Christ’s words imply an accommodation to the 
belief of the Jews, and also of the paralytic himself, that diseases are 
inflicted by way of punishment for sins, is all the more to be rejected that 
Jesus elsewhere (John ix. 3 ; Luke xiii. 1) contradicts this belief. He saw 
into the moral condition of the sick man, precisely as afterwards, ver. 4, 
He read the thoughts of the scribes (John v. 14, (ii. 25), and knew how it 
came that this paralysis was really the punishment of his special sins 
(probably of sensuality). Accordingly, he first of all pronounces forgive- 
ness, as being the moral condition necessary to the healing of the body (not in 
order to help the effect upon the physical system by the use of healing 
psychical agency, Krabbe), and then, having by forgiveness removed the 
hindrance, He proceeds to impart that healing itself by an exercise of His 
supernatural power. —eizov év éavt.] as in ili. 9.— BAacdyu] through the 
assumption of divine authority (Ex. xxxiv. 7 ; comp. with xx. 5 f.). He 
thereby appeared to be depriving God of the honor that belongs to Him, 
and to be transferring it to Himself ; for they did not ascribe to Him any 
prophetic authority to speak in the name of God. 

Ver. 4. The power to discern the thoughts and intentions of others (comp, 
on ver. 3) was a characteristic mark of the expected Messiah (Wetstein), 
was present in Jesus in virtue of His nature as the God-man, and analogous 
to His miraculous power. — ivari] why ? that is to say, iva ri yévyta.® — rovnpa] 
inasmuch, that is, as you regard me as a blasphemer, and that with a mali- 
cious intention ; whereas the sick man, and those who carried him, were 
full of faith. In contrast to them is the emphatic ipeic (you people /), which, 
being ignored by important authorities, is deleted by Tischendorf 8. 

Ver. 5. Tap] gives a reason for the thought expressed in the preceding 
question,— the thought, namely, that they were not justified in thinking 
evil of Him. — ri éorw eixorérepov] The meaning is unquestionably this : 
the latter is quite as easy to say as the former, and conversely ; the one 
requires no less power than the other ; the same divine éfovcia enables both 
to be done ; but in order that you may know that I was entitled to say the 
one, I will now add the other also: Arise, and so on. The result of the 
latter was accordingly the actual justification of the former. For 7i in the 
sense of rérepov, comp. Stallbaum.* — éyevpe (see the critical remarks) is not a 
mere interjection, like aye, érevye,” seeing that it is followed by xa/, and that 
the circumstance of the arising has an essential connection with the incident 
(see ver. 2, én? Khiv. BeBAnuévov 3 comp. vv. 6, 7) ; but the transitive is used 


1 Comp. dvyarep, ver. 22. Gr. p. 42 [E. T. 49]. Beza_ correctly 


2 Dorie (Suidas), not an Attic (Htym. I.) 
form of the perf. ind. pass.; Herod. ii. 165. 

3See also Phavorinus, p. 330, 49, and 
Gottling, Lehre vom Accent. p. 82; Ahrens, 
Dial. Dor. p. 344; Giese, Dor. Dial. p. 334 f. 

4 Winer, p. 77 [E. T. 96] ; Buttmann, neut. 


observes, that in the perf. is ‘ emphasis 
minime negligenda.”’ 

5 Hermann, ad Vig. p. 
Devar. p. 631 f. 

8 Ad Plat. Phil. p. 168. 

7 Fritzsche, ad Mare. p. 55 f. 


849; Klotz, ad 


196 THE GOSPEL OF MATTHEW. 


intransitively,! as is frequently the case, especially in verbs denoting 
haste.” 

Vv. 6, 7. Efovoiay éyer] placed near the beginning of the sentence so as to 
be emphatic : that the Son of man is empowered upon earth (not merely to 
announce, but) to communicate the forgiveness of sins. é7? r#¢ y7j¢ does not 
belong to a@. du. (Grotius),—in which case its position would convey an 
awkward emphasis, and the order of the words would naturally be ag. ay. 
éxl t. ye (a8 Marcion read them),—but it is joined to éfovciav éyer in the 
consciousness of the éfovcia brought with Him from heaven.* —rére réyer TO 
mapadvr. | is neither to be taken parenthetically, nor is réde to be understood 
(Fritzsche), in order to justify the parenthesis ; but Matthew’s style is such 
that no formal apodosis comes after dyapriac, but rather the call to the 
paralytic éyepfeic, etc. Matthew reports this change in regard to the parties 
addressed with serupulous fidelity ; and so, after concluding what Jesus 
says to the scribes with the anacoluthon iva 0é sidjre . . . duapriac, he pro- 
ceeds to add, in the narrative form, ‘‘ then He says to the paralytic.” This 
is a circumstantial simplicity of style which is not to be met with in 
polished Greek writers, who would have omitted the rére Aéyec tH mapar. 
altogether as a mere encumbrance. * — kai éyepveic, «.7.A.] therefore an imme- 
diate and complete cure, which does not favor the far-fetched notion that 
the declaration of Jesus penetrated the nervous system of the paralytic as 
with an electric current (Schenkel). 

Ver. 8. ’E¢0374jcav] not equivalent to é6atnacav (not even in Mark iv. 41 ; 
Luke viii. 35), but they were afraid. This was naturally the jist impression 
produced by the extraordinary circumstance ; and then they praised God, 
and so on. — oie avApéroic] Not the plural of category (ii. 20), so that only 
Jesus is meant (Kuinoel), but men generally,—the human race. In one indi- 
vidual member of the human family they saw this power actually displayed, 
and regarded it as a new gift of God to humanity, for which they gave God 
praise. 

Vv. 9, 10. Comp. Mark ii. 13 ff. (whom Matthew follows) and Luke v. 
27 ff. — Kai rapdywv| not: as He went further (as is commonly supposed), 
but (xx. 80; Marki. 16, xv. 21; John ix. 1; 1 Cor. vil. 31) : as He went 
away from where (He had cured the paralytic), and was passing by (38 Mace. 
vi. 16; Polyb. v. 18. 4), the place, that is, where Matthew was. Exactly 
as in Mark ii. 14, and in ver. 27 below. — Maré. Aeydu.] Named Matthew (ii. 
23, xxvi. 36, xxvii. 33), anticipation of the apostolic name. — 76 teAwvior] 
the custom-house of the place (Poll. ix. 28). On Matthew himself and his 
identity with Levi (Mark ii. 14 ; Luke v. 27), further confirmed in Constitt. 
Ap. viii. 22. 1, see introduction, § 1. Considering the locality, it may be 
assumed that Matthew already knew something of Jesus, the extraordinary 
Rabbi and worker of miracles in that district, and that he does not now for 
the first time and all of a sudden make up his mind to join the company of 


1 Kiihner, IT. 1, p. 81 ff. Bengel. 
2 Bernhardy, p. 340. Eur. Jph. A. 624: 4See passages from Demosthenes in 
Eyerp adeApas eb’ Vuevarov EVTUXAaS. Kypke, I. p. 48 f. 


3 **Coelestem ortum hic sermo sapit,” 


CHAP. 1X., 10-12. 197% 


His disciples (axoAovbetv). What is here recorded is the moment of the 
decision (in answer to Strauss, B. Bauer). This in opposition to Paulus, 
who interprets thus: ‘‘Go with me into thy house !” See Strauss, II. p. 
570, who, however, sweeps away everything in the shape of a historical 
substratum, save the fact that Jesus really had publicans among His disciples, 
and that probably Matthew had likewise been one of this class ;—‘‘ that 
these men had, of course, left the seat at the custom-house to follow Jesus, 
yet only in the figurative sense peculiar to such modes of expression, and 
not literally, as the legend depicts it.” 

Ver. 10. ’Eyévero . . . xai] see note on Luke v. 12. — dvaxeipévov] In 
classical Greek, to recline at table is represented by kxataxeica, as frequently 
also in the N. T. (Mark ii. 15, xiv. 3), though in Polybius, Athenaeus, and 
later writers avaxeicfa, too, is by no means rare.’ On the custom itself 
(with the left arm resting on a cushion), comp. note on John xiii. 23. —év 
7H oixig] With the exception of Fritzsche, Bleek, Holtzmann, Keim, Hilgen- 
feld (yet comp. already the still merely doubtful remark of Bengel), critics 
have gratuitously assumed the house to have been that of Matthew, which 
accords, no doubt, with Luke v. 29 (not Mark ii. 15), but neither with the 
simple év rf olxia (see ver. 23, xiii. 1, 86, xvii. 25) nor with the connection. 
Seeing, then, that the publican who vose from his seat at the custom-house 
and followed Jesus cannot, of course, have gone to his own residence, 
nothing else can have been meant but the house of Jesws (in which He lived). 
There lies the variation as compared with Luke, and like many another, it 
cannot be disposed of. But de Wette’s objection, reproduced by Lichten- 
stein, Lange, and Hilgenfeld, that it is scarcely probable that Jesus would 
give feasts, has no force whatever, since Matthew does not say a single 
word about a feast ; but surely one may suppose that, when the disciples 
were present in his residence at Capernaum, Jesus may have eaten, 7.e., 
have reclined at table with them. The publicans and sinners who came 
thither were at the same time hospitably received. — cai duaptwAoi| and in 
general men of animmoral stamp, with whom were also classed the publicans 
as being servants of the Roman government, and often guilty of fraudulent 
conduct (Luke iii. 138) ; comp. Luke xix. 7. Observe that Jesus Himself 
by no means denies the rovypdv eivac in regard to those associated with Him 
at table, ver. 12 f. They were truly diseased ones, who were now, how- 
ever, yielding themselves up to the hands of the physician. 

Ver. 11. ’Idévrec] How they saw it is conceivable in a variety of ways (in 
answer to Strauss, B. Bauer), without our requiring to adopt the precise 
snpposition of Ebrard and de Wette, that they saw it from the guests that 
were coming out of the house. May not the Pharisees have come thither them- 
selves either accidentally or on purpose? Comp. zopeviévrec, ver. 13; 
éyepeic, ver. 19 ; and see note on ver: 18. 

Ver. 12. The whole and the sick of the proverb are figurative expressions 
for the dixacoc and the duaprwaoi, ver. 13. In the application the Pharisees are 
mcluded among the former, not on account of their comparatively greater 


1 Phrynichus, ed. Lobeck, p. 217. 


198 THE GOSPEL OF MATTHEW. 


(de Wette), but because of their fancied, righteousness, as is evident from 
the sentiments of Jesus regarding this class of men expressed elsewhere, and 
likewise from ver. 13. The thought, then, is this: ‘‘the righteous 
(among whom you reckon yourselves) do not need the deliverer, but the 
sinners.” This contains an ‘‘ ironica concessio” to the Pharisees. The objec- 
tion, that in point of fact Jesus is come to call the self-righteous as well, is 
only apparent, seeing that He could not direct His call to these, as such 
(John ix. 39 ff.), so long as they did not relinquish their pretensions, and 
were themselves without receptivity for healing. 

Ver. 13. After having justified His holding intercourse with publicans 
and sinners, Jesus with the dé proceeds to tell the Pharisees what they would 
have to do in order to their receiving His invitation to be healed : ‘‘ but go. 
and learn what is meant by that saying of the Scripture (Hos. vi. 6, LXX.), I will 
have mercy and not sacrifice.” You must understand that first of all, if you 
are to be of the number of those who are to be invited to enter the Messiah’s 
kingdom : ‘‘for I am not come to call righteous, but sinners” (1 Tim. i. 15). 
Through that quotation from the Scripture (mentioned only by Matthew 
here and xii. 7), it is intended to make the Pharisees understand how much 
they too were sinners. According to others, Jesus wishes to justify His con- 
duct, inasmuch as the exhibition of love agd mercy constitutes the Messiah’s 
highest duty (Ewald, Bleek), This, however, is less probable, owing to the 
ropeviévtec With which He dismisses them from His presence, the analogy of 
xii. 7, and the very apt allusion in ov @vaiav to the Pharisees with their legal 
pride. — ropev@. zabere| corresponds to the Rabbinical form ateW)) 83, which is 
used in sending one away, with a view to fuller reflection upon some matter 
or other, or with a view to being’ first of all instructed regarding it ; see 
Schoettgen. — yap] assigns the reason for the ropevfévrec wabere, through which 
pavOavery they are first to be rendered capable of receiving the invitation to 
participate in the blessings of the kingdom. This invitation is uniformly 
expressed by the absolute caAeiv.—The masculine éAcoc is the classical form ; 
the neuter, which rarely occurs in Greek authors,’ is the prevailing form in 
the LXX., Apocrypha, and the New Testament, although the manuscripts 
show considerable fluctuation. In the present instance, the neuter, though 
possessing the authority of B C* Ds (like xii. 7), was naturally adopted 
from the LXX.— kai oi 6vc.| The negative is absolute, in accordance with the 
idea aut... aut. God does not desire sacrifice instead of mercy, but mercy 
instead of sacrifice. The latter is an accessory (Calvin), in which everything 
depends on the right disposition, which is what God desires. 

Ver. 14. Concerning private fasting. See note on vi. 16. On the fasting 
of the Baptist, comp. xi. 18. On the fasting of the Pharisees (Luke xviii. 
12), to whose authority on the rigid observance of the law the disciples of 
John adhere.* A not inappropriate addition by Matthew (Weiss, Holtz- 
mann). — ov vyoretover] comparatively, to be understood from the standpoint 


1 Tn qua ideo offendi eos docet peccato- arrogate righteousness to themselves,” 
rum intuitu, quia justitiam sibi arrogant,’’ Calvin. 
‘‘in which he shows that they are thus dis- 2 Tsocr. 18, p. 878; Diod. iii. 18. 


pleased at sight of their sins, because they 3 See Lightfoot on this passage. Serar. 


CHAP. IX., 15-17. 199 


of the questioners, who hold the freedom of the disciples of Jesus, as con- 
trasted with the frequent fasting of themselves and the Pharisees, to be 
equivalent to no fasting at all. 

Ver. 15. Oi vioi (vill. 12) rod vuudédvoc] of the bride chamber,’ are the rapa- 
viudtor, the friends of the bridegroom, who amid singing and playing of in- 
struments conducted the bride, accompanied by her companions, to the 
house of her parents-in-law and to the bride-chamber, and remained to take 
part in the wedding feast, which usually lasted seven days.? Meaning of 
the figure : So long as my disciples have me with them, they are incapable of 
mourning (fasting being the expression of mourning) : when once I am taken 
Srom them—and that time will inevitably come—then they will fast to express 
.their sorrow. Christ, the bridegroom of His people until His coming, and 
then the marriage ; see on John iii. 29. It is to be observed that this is the 
first occasion in Matthew on which Jesus alludes to His death, which from 
the very first He knew to be the divinely appointed and prophetically-an- 
nounced climax of His work on earth (John i. 29, ii. 19, iii. 14), and: did 
not come to know it only by degrees, through the opposition which he ex- 
perienced ; while Hase, Wittichen, Weizsiicker, Keim, postpone the cer- 
tainty of His having to suffer death—the latter, till that day at Caesarea 
(chap. xvi.) ; Holsten even puts it off till immediately before the passion ; 
see, on the other hand, Gess, op. cit., p. 253 ff. — The rére, which has the 
tragic emphasis of a sorrowful future (Bremi, ad Lys. p. 248, Goth.), ex- 
presses only the particular time specified, and not all time following as well, 
and while probably not condemning fasting in the church, yet indicating it 
to be a matter in which one is to be regulated, not by legal prescriptions 
(ver. 16 f.), but by personal inclination and the spontaneous impulses of 
the mind. Comp. vi. 16 ff. 

Vv. 16, 17. No one puts a patch consisting of cloth that has not been fulled wpon 
awold robe, for that which is meant to fillup therent (the patch put on to mend 
the old garment) tears off from the (old rotten) cloak, when it gets damp or 
happens to be spread out, or stretched, or such like. That airov does not 
refer to the piece of unfulled cloth (Euth. Zigabenus, Grotius, de Wette, 
Bleek), but to the old garment, is suggested by the idea involved in 7A7- 
poua (id quo res impletur, Fritzsche, ad Rom. IL. p. 469). Ti is not to be 
supplied after aipex, but the idea is: makesa rent.’ The point of the compari- 
son lies in the fact that such a proceeding is not only unsuitable, but a posi- 
tive hindrance to the end in view. ‘The old forms of piety amid which John 
and his disciples still move are not suited to the new religious life emanat- 
ing from me. To try to embody the latter in the former is to proceed in a 
manner as much calculated to defeat its purpose as when one tries to patch 
an old garment with a piece of unfulled cloth, which, instead of mending it, 
as it is intended to do, only makes the rent greater than ever ; oras when 


de Trihaeresio, p. 36.— moAAd] Srequenter, ad. Hebr. 1748; on the Greek rapavupdior, 
Vulg., Stallbaum, ad Plat. Phaed. p. 61 C, consult Hermann, Privatalterth. § 31, 18. 
ad Parmen. p. 126 B; Kiihner, IT. 1, p. 270. 3Comp. Rev. xxii. 19, and especially 
1 Joel ii. 16 ; Tob. vi. 16; Heliod. vii. 8. Winer, p. 552 [E. T. 757]. 
® Pollux, Onom. iii. 8; Hirt, deparanymph. 


200 THE GOSPEL OF MATTHEW. 


one seeks to fill old bottles with new wine, and ends in losing wine and 
bottles together. The new life needs new forms.” The Catholics, follow- 
ing Chrysostom and Theophylact, and by way of finding something in 
favor of fastings, have erroneously explained the old garment and old 
bottles as referring to the disciples, from whom, as ‘‘adhuc infirmes et 
veteri adsuetis homini” (Jansen), it was, as yet, too much to expect the 
severer mode of life for which, on the contrary (ver. 17), they would have 
to be previously prepared by the operation of the Holy Spirit. This is 
directly opposed to the meaning of Jesus’ words, and not in accordance with 
the development of the apostolic church (Col. ii. 20 ff.), by which fasting, 
as legal penance, was necessarily included among the oroiyeia tov Kéopov, 
however much it may have been valued and observed as the spontaneous 
outcome of an inward necessity (Acts xiii. 2 f., xiv. 23; 2 Cor. vi. 5, xi. 
27). Neander suggests the utterly irrelevant view, that ‘‘it is impossible to 
renovate from without the old nature of man” (the old garment) through 
fasting and prayers (which correspond to the new patch).—Leathern bottles, 
for the most part of goats’ skins’ with the rough side inward, in which it was 
and still is the practice (Niebuhr, I. p. 212) in the East to keep and carry 
about wine.? —azodowra:] Future, the consequence of what has just been de- 
scribed by the verbs in the present tense. On ei dé p#ye, even after negative 
clauses, see note on 2 Cor xi. 16. 


Remark. — According to Luke v. 33, it was not John’s disciples, but the 
Pharisees, who put the question to Jesus about fasting. This difference is in- 
terpreted partly in favor of Luke (Schleiermacher, Neander, Bleek), partly of 
Matthew (de Wette, Holtzmann, Keim), while Strauss rejects both. For my 
part, I decide for Matthew ; first, because his simpler narrative bears no traces 
of another hand (which, however, can scarcely be said of that of Luke) ; and 
then, because the whole answer of Jesus, so mild (indeed touching, ver, 15) in 
its character, indicates that those who put the question can hardly have been 
the Pharisees, to whom He had just spoken in a very different tone. Mark ii. 
18 ff., again (which Ewald holds to be the more original), certainly does not rep- 
resent the pure version of the matter as regards the questioners, who, accord-. 
ing to his account, are the disciples of John and the Pharisees, —an incongruity, 
however, which owes its origin to the question itself. 


Ver. f8. *Apyor] a president ; Matthew does not further define the office. 
According to Mark v. 22, Luke viii. 41, it was the synagogue-president, 
named Jairus.—The correct reading is eice20dv (comp. the critical remarks), 
and not ei¢ éA06v (Gersdorf, Rinck, de Wette, Tischendorf, Ewald), yet not 
as though the exc following were at variance with Matthew’s usual style 
(xxii. 35, xxiii. 15, xxvi. 40, 69, xxvii. 14 ; see, on the other hand, v. 41, vi. 
27, xii. 11, xvili. 5, xxi. 24) ; but since this, like the former incident, also 
occurred at that meal in the residence of Jesus (according to Matthew, not 
according to Mark and Luke), and as this fact was misapprehended, as most 


1 Hom. J/. iii. 247, Od. vi. 78, ix. 196, v. 265. 
2 Comp. Judith x. 6; Rosenmiiller, Morgen. on Josh. ix. 5. 


CHAP. IX., 20-22. 201 


critics misapprehend it still, consequently it was not seen to what eiceA- 
fav might refer, so that it was changed into eic éAfov. According to 
Matthew, the order of the incidents connected with the meal is as follows : 
(1) Jesus sends away the Pharisees, vv. 11-13. (2) After them, the disci- 
ples of John approach Him with their questions about fasting, and He in- 
structs them, vv. 14-17. (3) While he is still speaking to the latter, a 
president enters, ver. 18, and prefers his request. Thereupon Jesus rises, i.e., 
from the table (ver. 10), and goes away with the apywr, ver. 19 ; and it is 
not till ver. 28 that we read of His having returned again to His house.— 
apte éreAeitycev| has just now died. The want of harmony here with Mark v. 
23, Luke vii. 49, is to be recognized, but not (Olearius, Kuinoel) to be 
erroneously explained as meaning jam moritur, morti est provima. Others 
(Luther, Wolf, Grotius, Rosenmiiller, Lange) interpret, with Chrysostom, 
Theophylact, Euth. Zigabenus : oroyatéuevoc eirer, tréAaBe yap, ote wéxpe Tre 
mavtwc av aréfaverv, ‘he spoke with an aim, for he supposed that by this 
time the maid would be entirely deceased.” A harmonizing expedient.— 
Laying on of the hand, the symbol and medium in the communication of a 
divine benefit, xix. 13 ; Luke iv. 40, xiii. 18. See on Acts vi. 6, viii. 17 f., 
xili. 8, xix. 5; Gen. xlviii. 14; Num. xxvii. 18.—The account of Mark 
v. 22-42, which is followed by Luke viii. 41 ff., is so unique and fresh 
in regard to the detail which characterizes it, that it is not to be re- 
garded as a later amplification (Strauss, Baur, Hilgenfeld, Keim, Bleek) ; 
that of Matthew follows a condensed form of the tradition, which, more- 
over, is responsible for straightway introducing the éreAeiryoev as if forming 
part of what the president addressed to Jesus. 

Ver. 20. The particular kind of haemorrhage cannot be determined. Some : 
excess of menstruation. Others: haemorrhoids. From its having lasted 
twelve years, it may be inferred that the ailment was periodical. — éricbev | 
out of modesty. xpdoredov] LXX. Num. xv. 38, N¥°S. Such was the name 
given to the tassel which, in accordance with Num. xv. 38 f., the Jew wore 
on each of the four extremities of his cloak, to remind him of Jehovah’s 
commands.’ — The article points to the particular tassel which she touched. 
Jomp. Xiv. 36. 

Ver. 22. Jesus immediately (see on ver. 4) perceives her object and her 
faith, and affectionately (@iyarep, as a term of address, like réxvov, ver. 2, 
occurs nowhere else in the New Testament) intimates to her that 7 rictve cov 
cécwxé ce, on account of thy faith, thou art saved (healed)! The perfect de- 
scribes what is going to happen directly and immediately, as if it were 
something already taking place.?) Comp. Mark x. 52, Luke xviii. 42, and 
the counterpart of this among tragic poets, as in d”w2a, réOvyxa, and such 
like. The cure, according to Matthew, was effected by an exercise of Jesus’ 
will, which responds to the woman’s faith in His miraculous power, not 
through the mere touching of the garment (in answer to Strauss). The 
result was instantaneous and complete, To try to account for the miracle 


1 Lund, Jid. Heiligth. ed. Wolf, p. 896 f. ; Keil, Archdol. § 102; Ewald, Alterth. p. 307. 
2 See Kiihner, II. 1, p. 129. 


202 THE GOSPEL OF MATTHEW. 


by the influence of fear (Ammon), religious excitement (Schenkel), a pow- 
erful hope quickening the inactive organs (Keim), is not sufficiently in 
keeping with the well-authenticated result, and is inadequate to the removal 
of so inveterate a malady (the twelve years’ duration of which must indeed 
be ascribed to legend). — ad ric Op. éx.] not equivalent to év rq dp. éx. 
(vii. 14), but the thing begins to take place from that hour onward. Comp. 
Xv. 28, xvii. 18. ’A7é and éy therefore express the same result, the instan- 
taneous cure, in forms differing according to the manner in which the thing is 
conceived.—According to Eusebius,’ the woman’s name was Veronica, and 
a Gentile belonging to Paneas, where she erected a statue to Jesus. How- 
ever, see Robinson, newere Forsch. p. 587. 

Ver. 23. The use of the lugubrious strains of flutes (and horns), such as 
accompanied the funerals of the Jews,* was known also among Greeks and 
Romans. —éyAov] consisting partly of the women hired to mourn, partly of 
the friends and relations of the president. — @opvfotu.] did not require an 
article, as being a mere qualifying attribute. Therefore @opvZ. is not, with 
Fritzsche, Ewald, to be referred to idév. 

Vv. 24, 25. The maid is not to be regarded as being permanently dead, but 
only as sleeping and certain to come to life again, like one who awakens out of 
sleep. Thus, from the standpoint of His own purpose, does Jesus clearly 
and confidently speak of her actual death.‘ It is wrong to found upon 
these words the supposition of a mere apparent death (Paulus, Schleiermacher, 
Olshausen, Ewald, Schenkel ; Weizsiicker, without being quite decided). 
See, on the other hand, John xi. 4, 11. This hypothesis is as incompatible 
with the view of the evangelists as it is inconsistent with a due regard to 
the character of Jesus.° Keim, again, hesitates to accept the idea of an un- 
real death, yet continues to harbor doubts as to the historical character of 
the narrative. He thinks that, at least, the firm faith of the president may 
be accounted for by the later hopes of Christianity, which may have prompted 
the desire to see, in the risen Christ, the future restorer of the dead already 
manifesting Himself as such in His earthly ministry,—a matter in connection 
with which the statement in xi. 5 and the paralle? of Elias and Elisha (1 
Kings xvii. 17; 2 Kings iv. 8, 18. Comp. Strauss) also fall to be consid- 
ered. Surely, however, a legendary anticipation of this sort would have 
been far more fertile in such stories !_ Then, apart even from the raising of 
Lazarus related by John, we have always (xi. 5) to show how hazardous it 
must be to relegate to the region of myths those cases in which Jesus raises 
the dead, considering what a small number of them is reported. — é¢e2/67] 
Comp. xxi. 12. The request to retire (avaywpeire, ver. 24) not having been 
complied with, a thrusting out follows. Marki. 43 ; Acts ix. 40.—Notice in 
eiceAfav (viz. into the chamber of death) the noble simplicity of the concise 





narrative. — 76 xopaciov] See Lobeck ;° on 7 Aun, Wyttenbach.? 
1 H. E. vii. 1%. 4“ Certus ad miraculum accedit,’’ Bengel. 
2 Hvang. Nicod. in Thilo. I. p. 561. 5 See Krabbe, p. 827 ff. 
8 Lightfoot on this passage; Geier, de 6 ad Phryn. p. 74. 

luctu. Hebr. v.§ 16; Grundt, die Trauerge- 7 ad Julian. Or. I. p. 159, Lps. 


brduche d. Hebr. 1868. 


CHAP. IX., 27-34. 203 

Vv. 27, 28. Ato rvdAot]’ Matthew alone records the two miracles, vv. 
27-34, but it is rash to regard them (Holtzmann) as a literary device in an- 
ticipation of xi. 5. The title ‘‘son of David” is surely conceivable enough, 
considering the works already done by Jesus, and so cannot serve as a ground 
for regarding the healing of the blind man here recorded as a variation of 
xx. 29 ff. (Wilke, Bleek, Weiss, Keim). — rapay. as ver. 9. —ei¢ rt. oixiav] in 
which Jesus resided. Comp. ver. 10. 

Ver. 30. f. ’"Avedybyoav . . . d¢badrpuoi] they recovered their power of seeing.” 
—éveBpiyunOy (see the critical remarks) : He was displeased with them, and said 
(see on John xi. 33). The angry tone (Mark i. 48) of the prohibition is due 
to the feeling that an unsuccessful result was to be apprehended. Tosuch a 
feeling correspond the strict terms of the prohibition : take care to let no one 
know it ! — dvedhjucoar, x.t.4.| ‘* propter memoriam gratiae non possunt tacere 
beneficium,” Jerome. éeAfévrec : out of the house. Ver. 28. Paulus, not- 
withstanding the context, interprets : out of the town. See also ver. 32, 
where aitov éepyouévov can only mean: whilst they were going out from 
Jesus, out of His house. 

Vv. 32, 33.° Airév| Placed first for sake of emphasis, in contrast to the 
new sufferer who presents himself just as they are going out. — éd¢avy oirwc| 
égavy is impersonal, as in Thucyd. vi. 60. 2,* so that the general ‘‘it” isto be 
regarded as matter for explanation.® What the matter in question specially 
is, comes out in the context ; vv. 33, 34, éBadre Ta Sayudvia. Therefore to 
be taken thus : never has it, viz., the casting out of demons, been displayed in 
such amanner among the Israelites.. According to Fritzsche, Jesus forms the 
subject ; never had He shown Himself in so illustrious a fashion.® But in that 
case, how is év t@ Iapayda to be explained ? Formerly it was wsval to inter- 
pret thus : ojtwc stands for rovro or rovwvrd 7, like the Hebrew {2 (1 Sam. 
xxiii. 17). A grammatical inaccuracy ; in all the passages referred to as 
cases in point (Ps. xlviii. 6; Judg. xix. 30; Neh. viii. 17), neither {2 nor 
ovrwe Means anything else than thus, as in 1 Sam., loc. cit., Kai Yaodva é 
rathp pov oidev ottac : and Saul my father knows it thus. That false canon is 
also to be shunned in Mark ii. 12. 

Ver. 34. What a contrast to those plaudits of the people !— év ré apyovrte 
tov Jawoviov] His power to cast out demons originates in the prince of 
demons ; everything depends on the Devil, he isthe power through which he 
works.” 


1 watovres, rept Ov édavpatovpyer, Kat mirrev- 
caves, avTov elvat Tov tpogboKwpevov XpioTor, 
“having learned concerning the wonders 
which He was working, and having be- 
lieved that He was the long-looked-for Mes- 
siah,”’ Euth. Zigabenus. 

2 Comp. John ix. 10; 2 Kings vi. 17; Isa. 
xxx. 5, xlii. 7; Ps. exlvi. 8; Wetstein on 
this passage. 

8 Holtzmann thinks that this story like- 
wise Owes its origin merely to an anticipa- 
tion of xi. 5. According to de Wette, 
Strauss, Keim, it is identical with the heal- 


ing mentioned in xii. 22 ff. According to 
various sources “marked as a duplicate”’ 
(Keim) the demoniac, ch. xii., is blind and 
dumb. And see note on xii. 22. 

4 See Kriiger 77 loc. 

5 See by all means Kriiger, § 61. 5. 6. 
Niagelsbach, note on //ias, p. 120, ed. 3. 

6 Rettig in d. Stud. u. Krit. 1838, p. 788 f. 

7™Comp. on év, Ellendt, Ler. Soph. I. p. 
597; Winer, p. 864[E. T. 486] ; on 0 apxwy Tt. 
Saru., Hv. Nico. 23, where the devil is called 
apxiduaBodos ; see in addition, Thilo, p. 736 


204 THE GOSPEL OF MATTHEW. 


Ver. 35. Here we have the commencement of a new section, which opens, 
vv. 35-88, with the introduction to the mission of the Twelve, which intro- 
duction has been led up to by the previous narratives. Comp. iv. 23-25. — 
avtav| Masculine. Comp. iv. 23, xi. 1. 

Ver. 36. ’Idav dé] in the course of this journey. — rove dyAovc] who were 
following Him —éoxvauévor] What is meant isnot a herd torn by wolves 
(Bretschneider), which would neither suit the words nor be a fitting illus- 
tration of the crowds that followed Him ; but a dense flock of sheep which, 
from having no shepherd, and consequently no protection, help, pasture, and 
guidance, are in a distressing, painful condition (verati, Vulg.); and 
éppiupévot, not scattered (Luther, Beza, Kuinoel, Baumgarten-Crusius, Bleek), 
which is not the meaning of pizrew, nor even neglecti,’ like the German 
weggeworfen (castaway),* which would be too feeble, coming after éoxvau. ; but 
prostrati, thrown down, stretched upon the ground (frequently in the LXX. and 
Apocrypha), like sheep exhausted, that are unable to walk any farther (Vulg. : 
jacentes).* Jesus was moved with compassion for them, because they 
happened to be in such a plight (essent ; notice how He has expressed His 
pity in this illustration), and then utters what follows about the harvest 
and the laborers. We have therefore to regard écxvau. and éppyp. as illus- 
trations of spiritual misery, which are naturally suggested by the sight of 
the exhausted and prostrate multitudes (that had followed Him for a long 
distance).—The form épjiupuévor (Lachm. with spr. len.) is found only in D.* 

Vv. 37, 38. The pafyrai in the more comprehensive sense. The Twelve are 
expressly specified in x. 1 immediately following. — 6 pév epiopoc, x.t.A| The 
literal (John iv. 35) meaning of whichis this : Great is the multitude of people 
that may be won for the Messiah's kingdom, and that is already ripe for being so, 
but small the number of teachers qualified for this spiritual work ; pray God 
therefore, and soon. Luke x. 2 connects those words with the mission of the 
Seventy. They are as appropriate in the one case as in the other, and in 
both cases (according to Bleek, only in Luke x. 2) were actually used by 
Jesus. But to infer from the i//ustration of the harvest what season of the year 
it happened to be at the time (Hausrath, Keim), is very precarious, consider- 
ing how the utterances of Jesus abound with all sorts of natural imagery, 
and especially considering that this present simile was frequently employed. 
— deffnre, x.t.4.] So entirely was He conscious that His work was the same 
as a work of God, John iv. 34. — éxadq] force them out, a strong expression 
under the conviction of the urgent necessity of the case. Comp. note on 
Mark i. 12. 


1 Soph. Aj. 1250. 508; and for the usual spir. asp., Gottting, 

2 Kypke, Fritzsche, de Wette. Accentl. p. 205. On the form éptppeévor, 

3 Comp. Xenoph. Mem. iii. 1.7 : Herodian, adopted by Tischendorf after B C &, etc., 
ili. 12. 18, vi. 8. 15; Polyb. v. 48. 5. consult Kiuhner, I. p. 903. 


4 See Lobeck, Paral. p. 13; Kiihner, I. p. 


CHAP. X. 205 


CHAPTER X. 


Ver. 2. Tisch. 8 has kai before ’IaxwGoc, only according to B 8* Syr. — Ver. 
3. Ag33. 6 éxikdA, Oadd.] Fritzsche : @add, 6 éxixA, Ae3B., only according to 13, 
346. Changed because Oadd. is really the proper noun.!— Ver. 4. xavavirnc] 
the form kavavaiog (Lachm. Tisch.) is decisively attested. — Ver. 8. xaSapitere] 
Elz. inserts vexpovd¢ éye(pete, Which words Griesb. Lachm. and Tisch. 8 (so B C* 
D &) place after Oeparevere, while Fritzsche puts them after é«@a2Aere. Cor- 
rectly struck out by Scholz and Tisch. 7. For besides being suspicious, owing 
to their omission in C*** EF GKLMSUVXTITUJ and very many Curss., 
also several versions and Fathers,—a suspicion that is heightened by their di- 
versity of position in the unquestionably important authorities which witness 
in their favour,—they have the appearance of being an interpolation, which, in 
accordance with the apostolic narrative (Acts ix. 20 ff.), seemed necessary by 
way of completing the list of miraculous powers that had been conferred. Had 
the words been original, their contents would in any case have contributed 
much more to preserve them than to cause their omission. — Ver. 10. 5a3do0r] 
CEFGKLMPSUVXAITI Curss. Copt. Arm. Syr. p. Theoph. have paGdove. 
Adopted by Scholz and Tisch. Altered because of the preceding plurals, and 
because what is spoken applies at the same time to a plurality of persons. — 
éort] should be deleted, see on Luke x. 7.— Ver. 19. The reading fluctuates 
between rapadidwouv (Elz. Tisch. 7), tapadaoovo., and rapadaovv (Tisch. 8, after 
B E* Sand Lachm.). The future is adopted from ver. 17; while the present, 
which is best authenticated, and most in accordance with the sense, would be 
easily transformed into the aorist by the omission, on the part of the tran- 
seribers, of the middle syllable. — dofyjoeta: to Aadjoere] is not found in D L, 
Curss. Arm. Codd. of It. Or. Cypr. and a few Verss. Bracketed by Lachm. 
Ancient omission occasioned by the homoioteleuton. — Ver. 23. getyerte ei¢ TV 
GAAnv] Griesb. : gebyete eic THY Etépav, Kav Ex Tadbryng DiWKwow bude, pedyeTeE Eig THY 
adAnv,? after D LL, Curss. and some Fathers and Verss., however, with differ- 
ences in detail. A continuous extension of the sentence. — Ver. 25. érexdAecav] 
Elz. : ixadecav, against decisive testimony. Lachm. again (defended by Rettig 
in Stud. u. Krit. 1838, p. 477 ff.; Buttmann, ibid. 1860, p. 342 f.) has, instead of 
the accusative, the dative 76 oixoJeoréry and oixiaxoic, only after B*, which is to 


1 DZ), 122, Codd. quoted in Augustine, Hesy- 
chius, Rufinus, have merely AeBBaios. BN, 
7, 124, and several versions have only 
@addaios. So Lachm. I regard the simple 
AcBBatos (with Tisch. and also Ewald) as the 
original reading. The other readings are 
derived from Mark iii. 18, because of 
the identity of Lebbaeus and Thaddaeus. 
Comp. Bengel, Appar. crit. Had the simple 
@addatos been the true one, it would have 
been impossible to see how AeBBatos should 


have been inserted, seeing it does not occur 
anywhere else in the New Testament. No 
doubt D and Codd. of It., also Mark iii. 18, 
have AeBBatov, but against testimony so de- 
cisive that it appears to have come there 
from our present passage. 

2%Instead of the adAdAnv of the Received 
text, Lachm. and Tisch. 8, following BN 
33, 265, Or. Petr. Ath. have é7épav, which, 
however, is undoubtedly connected with 
the above interpolation. 


206 THE GOSPEL OF MATTHEW. 


be ascribed to a grammarian who took émxaieiv as meaning to reproach. — Ver. 
28. goBeicbe] Elz., Fritzsche : go8nfjre, against decisive testimony. Adopted 
from ver. 26. Likewise in ver, 3l-we ought, with Lachm. and Tisch., to restore 
goBeioFe in accordance with B DL 8, Curss, Or. Cyr. — droxtevdvtwv] so also 
Scholz, The dzoxrewdvrwyv (B, Or.) of the Received text is‘:condemned by 
counter testimony as a grammatical correction. But although the form droxte- 
vévtwy is supported by important testimony, yet we ought, with Lachm. and 
Tisch., to follow CD UT A II 8 and Curss. and adopt the Aeolic-Alexandrine 
form aroktevvdvtwv (see Sturz, Dial. Al. p. 128), because droxtevdvrwy as a pres- 
ent is nowhere found, while an aorist, if the verb had had that form, would 
have been in this instance without meaning. — Ver. 33. The position cayo aitév 
(Beng. Lachm. Tisch. 8) is a mechanical alteration on account of ver. 32. 


Ver. 1. Not the choosing, but merely the mission of the Twelve, is here 
related ; Mark vi. 7; Luke ix. 1. The choosing (Mark iii. 14 ; Luke vi. 
13 ; comp. also John vi. 70), which had taken place some time before,— 
although a still earlier one, viz. that of the five (iv. 18 ff., ix. 9), is recorded, 
—is assumed, as far as the complete circle of the Twelve, to be generally 
known, which is certainly an omission on the part of the narrator.— é£ovsiar] 
Authority over unclean spirits. The following dare is epexegetical : so that 
they would cast them out. But Kai Oeparetery, etc., is not dependent on dare 
also, but on é£ovoiav (1 Cor. ix. 5). Power was given to them both to cure 
demoniacs and to heal those who suffered from natural disease as well ; 
comp. ver. 8. The manner of imparting this power, whether through a 
laying on of ,hands, or breathing on them (John xx. 22) through a symbolic 
act (de Wette), or by communicating to them certain sacred words or signs, 
or by certain movements of the hands (Ewald), or even by magnetic influ- 
ences (Weisse), or by the mere effectual word of the Lord (which is more 
likely, since nothing is specified), is not stated.—On the genitive, comp. 
Mark vi. 7 ; John xviii. 2; Sir. x. 4. 

Ver. 2. Addexa]* comp. xix. 28. On this occasion, when the mission is 
understood to take place, it is precisely the designation aroaréAwy (not oc- 
curring elsewhere in Matthew, while in Mark it is found only in vi. 30) that 
is made choice of, though doubtless also used by Jesus Himself (John xiii. 16 ; 
Luke vi. 13), and from that circumstance it gradually came to be employed 
as the distinguishing official title. — rpéroc Siuwv] The jirst is Simon. The 
further numbering of them ceases, for Matthew mentions them in pairs. 
The placing of Peter first in all the catalogues of the apostles (Mark iii. 
16 ff.; Luke vi. 14 ff.; Acts i. 13) is not accidental (Fritzsche), but is due to 
the fact that he and his brother were looked upon as the rpwrdxAyrou (see, 

however, John i. 41). This accords with the pre-eminence which he had 
| among the apostles as primus inter pares,? and which was recognized by 
Jesus Himself. For that they were arranged in the order of their rank is 
perfectly obvious, not only from the betrayer being uniformly put last, but 


l-Theophylact : cara tov aprdpoy Tov bHSexa 40.5 Luke viii. 45, ix. 32, xxii. 31 f.; John xxi. 
pvdAdv. 15s VACHS dos tied vino te. evils 45 ek eke 
2 xvi. 16 ff., xvii. 1, xxiv. 19, xxvii. 26, 37, Galea Sadie. 


CHAP.) X. 5) 3s 207 
also from the fact that in all the catalogues James and John, who along with 
Peter were the Lord’s most intimate friends, are mentioned immediately 
after that apostle (and Andrew). Moreower, a conjoint view of the four 
catalogues of the apostles’ will confirm Bengel’s observation.? — 6 Aeyédu. 
Tétpoc] who is called Peter,* that was his usual apostolic name. —’Avdpéac] 
Greek name,* like Philippus below. Doubtless both originally had Hebrew 
names which are not recorded. 

Ver. 3. Bapfodouaioc| 2A 3, son of Tolmai, LXX. 2 Sam. xiii. 37, 
patronymic. His proper name was Nathanael ; see note on John i. 46, and 
Keim, II. p. 811. —@ayac] DSA, Aiduuoc, twin (John xi. 16, xx. 24, xxi. 2), 
perhaps so called from the natuye of his birth. In Eusebius and the Acts of 
Thomas he is called ° Ioidac Owpae 6 Kad Aidvpoc. — 6 teAdvnc| In reference to 
ix. 9 without any special object. —6 rov ’AAdaiov] Matthew’s father was like_ 
wise called Alphaeus (Mark ii. 14), but this is a different person ; see In- 
troduction, sec. 1. — AeBBaioc] who must be identical with Judas Jacobi,® 
Luke vi. 16 (comp. John xiv. 22), Acts i. 13; who, however, is not the 
author of the New Testament epistle bearing that name. Lebbaeus (the cour- 
ageous one, from 55), according to our passage, had become his regular apos- 
tolic name. According to Mark iii. 18, he had the apostolic name of @ad- 
daiog (which must not be taken as the correct reading of the present pas- 
sage ; see the critical notes), and it is in vain to inquire how this twofold 
appellation has arisen. The name Zhaddaeus, however, is not ‘ deflexio 
nominis Judae, ut rectius hic distingueretur ab Iscariot,” ‘‘a bending of the 
name Judas, so that he may be more correctly distinguished from Iscariot” 
(Lightfoot, Wetstein), but the independent name ‘81, which is also cur- 
rently used in the Talmud (Lightfoot, Schoettgen, Wetstein). There is the 
less reason to seek for an etymology of Oadd. such as will make the name 
almost synonymous with Ac@Z., as if from 1H (which, however, signifies 
mamma), or even from “WW, one of the names of God, and meaning potens 
(Ebrard). For the apocryphal but ancient Acts of Lebbaeus, see Tischen- 
dorf.” According to these, he received the name @adéaioe when John the 


1 Ewald, Gesch. 


Chr. p. 395 ff., Bleek, 
Keim. 

2“ Universi ordines habent tres quater- 
niones, quorum nullus cum alio quicquam 
permutat ; tum in primo semper primus est 
Petrus, in secundo Philippus... in tertio 
Jacobus Alphaei ; in singulis ceteri apostoli 
loca permutant; proditor semper extre- 
mus,” ‘All the arrangements contain 
three divisions of four each, of which no 
one changes any name with either of the 
others: then in the first Peter is always the 
first, in the second Philip... in the third 
James the Son of Alphaeus; in each division 
of the four the other apostles vary their 
places : the traitor is always last.” 

3 Schaeffer, Meélet. p. 14. 

* Found even in Herod. vi. 126. 

5 See Thilo, p. 94 ff. 

® On the relation of the genitive in Judas 


Jacobi (not brother, but son), see note on 
Luke vi. 16; Acts i. 13. Comp. Nonnus, 
John xiv. 22: “Iovdas vids "IakwHBovro. The 
view that this Judas isa different person 
from Lebbaeus, and that he had sueceeded 
to the place rendered vacant, probably by 
the death of Lebbaeus (Schleiermacher, 
Ewald), cannot possibly be entertained, for 
this reason, that in that case the statement 
in Luke vi. 13 (éxkAcEdpevos, etc.) would be 
simply incorrect, which is not to be sup- 
posed in connection with a matter so im- 
portant and generally known (Rufinus, 77 
Praef. ad Origen in ep. ad Rom.). Accord- 
ing to Strauss, only the most prominent of 
the Twelve were known, while the others 
had places assigned them in conformity 
with the various traditions that prevailed, 
7 Acta ap. apocr, p. 261 ff. 


208 JHE GOSPEL OF MATTHEW. 


Baptist baptized him, and was previously known by the name of Lebbaeus. 
This is in accordance with the reading of the Received text in the case of 
the present passage, and with the designation in the Constit. apost.,'—a cir- 
cumstance which, at the same time, goes to show that the name of the apos- 
tle as given in Mark is to be preferred to that found in Matthew. 

Ver. 4. ‘0 xavavaioc] see the critical remarks. Luke calls him (yAdrye, the 
(quondam) zealot.* Zealots were a class of men who, like Phinehas (Num. 
xxv. 9), were fanatical defenders of the theocracy ; and who, while taking 
vengeance on those who wronged it, were themselves frequently guilty of 
great excesses ; Ewald, Gesch. Chr. p. 67 f. But the 6 Kavavaiog (or 
Kavaviryc, according to the Received text) is not to be explained in this 
way, inasmuch as this form of the epithet is derived from the name of some 
place or other : the Canaanite, or Cananaean ; comp. Kavavitrne in Strabo, 
xiv. 5, p. 674 (ad Kune tevoc). It cannot be derived from the town of Cana 
in Galilee (Luther, Calovius) ; in that case it would require to have taken 
the form Kavaioc, just as the inhabitants of Kdvac in Aeolis* were called 
Kavaio..* This enigmatical name is to be explained from the fact that, in 
accordance with his previous character, Simon bore the surname °383p, 
SyAdtyc, Aname which was correctly interpreted by Luke ; but, according 
to another tradition, was erroneously derived from the name of a place, and 
accordingly came to be rendered 6 Kavavaioc. —’Iokapiérnc] nyap WR, a 
native of Karioth, in the tribe of Judah.* “Ioro3o¢ (110 W'S), There is no 
evidence that he was the only one that did not belong to Galilee (which has 
induced Ewald to think that the place in question is the town of np 
(Josh. xxi. 34) in the tribe of Zebulon. The proposal of Lightfoot, to 
derive either from S'O))PD8, leather apron, or from 81308, strangulation, is 
indeed recommended by de Wette ; but like the interpretation DPW Ws, 
man of lies (Paulus, Hengstenberg), it is not suited to the Greek form of the 
word ; nor are de Wette’s or Hengstenberg’s objections to the ordinary 
explanation of the name to be regarded as unanswerable. — 6 xa? rapadoi¢ 
aivtév| who also delivered him over (not betrayed, in which case we should have 
had xpodovc). A tragic reminiscence, and ever present to the mind! Kai 
has the force of gui idem.° 

Vv. 5 ff. From this on to ver. 42 we have the instructions to the Twelve; 
comp. Mark vi. 8 ff., and especially Luke ix. 3 ff. As in the case of the 
Sermon on the Mount, so on this occasion also, Luke’s parallels are irregular 
in their connection (in ch. ix. connected with the mission of the Twelve, in 
ch. x. with the mission of the Seventy). But this is only an additional 
reason (in answer to Sieffart, Holtzmann) why the preference as respects 
essential originality—a preference, however, which in no way excludes the 
idea of the proleptical interweaving of a few later pieces—should also in 
this instance be given to Matthew, inasmuch as the contents of the passage 


1 AceBBatos o emtxAnvdets Oaddaios, 6. 14. 1, 8. 3 Strabo, xiii. 1, p. 581. 
25. . 4 Parmenides in Athen. 3, p. 76 A. 

2? Luke vi. 15; Acts i. 13; Chald. *38IP 5 Josh. xy. 25; Joseph. Anté. vii. 6. 1. 
Hebr. $1; Ex. xx. 5, xxiv. 14; Deut. iy. * Klotz, ad Devar, p. 636, 


24. 


CHAP. X., 5-7. 209 


now before us are undoubtedly taken from his collection of our Lord’s 
sayings. — The mission itself, to which Luke xx. 35 points back, and which 
for this very reason we should be the less inclined to regard as having taken 
place repeatedly (Weisse, Ewald), was intended as a preliminary experiment 
in the independent exercise of their calling. For how long? does not appear. 
Certainly not merely for one day (Wieseler), although not exactly for 
several months (Krafft). According to Mark vi. 7, they were sent out by 
twos, which, judging from Luke x. 1, Matt. xxi. 1, is to be regarded as 
what originally took place. As to the result, Matthew gives nothing in the 
shape of an historical account. 

Ver. 5. With the Gentiles (cddv viv, way leading to the Gentiles, Acts 
ii. 28, xvi. 17; Kiihner, II. 1, p. 286) Jesus associates the Samaritans, on 
account of the hostility which prevailed between the Jews and the Samari- 
tans. The latter had become intermixed during the exile with Gentile 
colonists, whom Shalmaneser had sent into the country (2 Kings xvii. 24), 
which caused the Jews who returned from the captivity to exclude them 
from any participation in their religious services. For this reason the 
Samaritans tried to prevent the rebuilding of the temple by bringing ac- 
cusations against them before Cyrus. Upon this and upon disputed ques- 
tions of a doctrinal and liturgical nature, the hatred referred to was 
founded.' In accordance with the divine plan of salvation (xv. 24), Jesus - 
endeavors, above all, to secure that the gospel shall be preached, in the 
first instance, to the Jews (John iv. 22) ; so, with a view to the energies of 
the disciples being steadily directed to the foremost matter which would 
devolve upon them, He in the meantime debars them from entering the 
field of the Gentiles and Samaritans. This arrangement (if we except hints 
such as viii. 11, xxi. 48, xxii. 9, xxiv. 14) He allows to subsist till after His 
resurrection ; then, and not till then, does He give to the ministry of the 
apostles that lofty character of a ministry for all men (Matt. xxviii. 19 f. ; 
Acts i. 8), such as, from the first, He must have regarded His own to have 
been (v. 13). The fact that Jesus Himself taught in travelling through 
Samaria (John iv.), appears to be at variance with the injunction in our 
passage (Strauss); but this is one of those paradoxes in the Master’s pro- 
ceedings about which the disciples were not to be enlightened till some 
time afterwards. And what Jie could do, the disciples were not yet equal 
to, so that, in the first place, they were called upon only to undertake the 
lighter task. 

Vv. 6, 7. Ta mpdBara . . . "IopafA] the members of Israel, the family of 
Israel (Lev. x. 6 ; Ex. xix. 3), the theocratic nation, who were alienated 
from the divine truth and the divine life, and so were found wandering in 
error, like sheep without a shepherd. Comp. xv. 24. And such sheep 
(ix. 36) were they all, seeing that they were without faith in Him, the 
heaven-sent Shepherd. For the figure generally, comp. Isa. lili. 6 5 Jer. 
1. 8; Ezek, xxxiv, 5, Ver. 7. jyyuxev, «.7.2.] being precisely the same 


1 Sir. 1. 25 ff.; Lightfoot, p. 327 f. 


210 THE GOSPEL OF MATTHEW. 


terms as those in which Jesus Himself (iv. 17), and the Baptist before 
Him, had commenced their preaching (iii. 2). 

Vv. 8, 9. Awpeav . . . dére] with reference to the miraculous gifts Just men- 
tioned, not to the teaching, for which, as a matter of course, nothing was to 
be asked in return except the bare necessaries of life, ver. 10 (1 Cor. ix. 4 ff.). 
— éiaBere| refers back to ver. 1.— 7 krponobe] you must not provide for your- 
selves. —The girdle, which holds together the loose upper robe, served the 
double purpose of keeping money as well, the different kinds of which are, 
in the order of their value, denoted by ypvodv, apyvpov, yaAxév.t Therefore 
eic tr. ¢. b. : in your girdles, is depending on kro. 

Ver. 10. Mf] se. xrAonofe, with which eic¢ ddé6v is to be connected. Tfpa, a 
bag slung over the shoulder, see Duncan, Ler. Hom. ed. Rost, s. v. —dto 
yitavac| two under-garments, either with a view to wear both at one time 
(Mark vi. 9), or only one while carrying the other with them in case of need. 
— trodjuata] namely, for the requirements of the journey, besides the pair 
already in use. The question whether, as Lightfoot and Salmasius think, it 
is shoes in the strict sense of the word ? that are here meant, or whether it is 
ordinary cavdaaca (Mark vi. 9), is, judging from the usual Oriental mode of 
covering the feet, to be decided in favor of the sandals, which the Greeks 
also called by the same name as that in the text.* — dé /a4Bdor| nor a staff 
to carry in the hand for support and self-defence (Tob, v. 17), an unimpor- 
tant variation from Mark vi. 8. — a£wo¢ yap, x.t.4.] a general proposition, the 
application of which is of course evident enough. Free and unembarrassed 
by any iAckje ppovridoc, eic pwovyv dé BAErovTEC THY Ey xELpLaHeiaay avToicg SLakoviar, 
“‘ worldly care, but looking to the ministration alone which was entrusted 
to them” (Euth. Zigabenus), such as is represented by the matters just 
specified, they are to rely upon God’s care of them, who will cause them to 
realize in their own experience how true it is that the laborer is worthy of 
His support. 

Ver. 11. *Agvoc] according to what follows : worthy to provide you lodging 
at his house.* Jesus forbids the apostles to indulge in a fickle and frequent 
shifting of their quarters asa thing unbecoming their office, and as calculat- 
ed to interfere with the steady progress of their labors. And He directs 
them to go to private houses, not to the synagogues nor to the market-places, 
seeing that they were unaccustomed to making public appearances, but also 
out of regard to the importance of domestic efforts. 

Ver.12. Hic rv oixiav] This does not mean the house at which you arrive 
(de Wette), but that which belongs to him whom, on inquiry, you find to be 
worthy of you (ver. 11), and where, if the owner is worthy, you are to stay 
until you remove to another locality. The article is definite as referring to 
Kakel. —Gordcacbe aitav| Euth. Zigabenus : érebyeobe eipyvnv airg, the usual 
form of salutation, 17 piu, Gen. xl. 23 ; Judg. xix. 20 ; Luke x. 5. 

Ver, 13. Agia] not ‘‘bonis votis, quae salute dicenda continebuntur” 


1 Rosenmiiller, Morgenl. VY. p. 53 f. infamia deturpetur,’’ ‘“ Let not the worthi- 
2 Yrodyjmata KoiAa, Becker, Charicl. p. 221. ness of preaching be disfigured by ill report 
83 Pollux, VII. 35 ff. of him who undertakes it,’ Jerome, 


4“Ne praedicationis dignitas susciplentis 


CHAP. x., 14-16. 211 


(Fritzsche), but, asin ver. 11, worthy of your remaining in it. Tt should be 
noticed that 7 and p77 are put first for sake of emphasis ; and should the 
house be worthy, then come, and so on ; but if it 2s not a worthy one, then, 
and so on. In this way the reference of doc remains unchanged. —é16éro] 
shall come, that is my will. — 7 eiphvy buar] the blessings brought by you by way 
of salutation. — xpi iuac éxcotpapf_to].* An expression which represents the 
idea to the senses. Isa. xlv. 23, lx. 11. 

Ver. 14. Kai d¢ éay, x.7.4.] The nominative is a case of anacoluthon, and 
placed at the beginning, so as to be emphatic, as in vii. 24 : Whosoever will 
not have received you. . . as you quit that house or that town, shake, and so on. 
éépyeoc0a, with a simple genitive (Acts xvi. 39).? The 2w, which Lach- 
mann, Tischendorf 8. insert (B D 8), is a gloss upon what is a rare con- 
struction in the New Testament. Notice the present participle, thereby 
meaning ‘‘ upon the threshold,” and relatively ‘‘ at the gate.”” —7#] or, should 
a whole town refuse to receive you and listen to you. The shaking off the 
dust is a sign of the merited contempt with which such people are reduced to 
the level of Gentiles, whose very dust is defiling.* This forcible meaning of 
the symbolical injunction is not to be weakened ;* de Wette : ‘‘ Have noth- 
ing further to do with them ;” Ewald : ‘‘ Calmly, as though nothing had hap- 
pened ;” on the contrary, it is strengthened by ver. 15. Comp. vii. 6. 

Ver. 15. Tm Zod., «.7.2.] the land (those who once inhabited the land) where 
Sodom and Gomorrah stood. The truth of this asseveration is founded on the 
principle in morals, that the more fully the will of God is proclaimed (Luke 
xii. 47; Matt. xi. 20 ff.), the greater the guilt of those who resist it. 
Notice how the resurrection of the wicked also is here assumed (John v. 
29); observe likewise how Jesus’ words bespeak the highest Messianic self- 
consciousness. 

Ver. 16. ’Idot] Introduces demonstratively the thought for which vv. 14, 
15 have prepared the way. Such forms of address ‘as idoi, aye, etc., fre- 
quently occur in the singular in classical writers also, and that, too, where 
it is a question of plurality (xviii. 31, xxvi. 65 ; John i. 29 ; Acts xiii. 46).° 
—éyo] here, as always, is emphatic (in answer to Fritzsche, de Wette, 
Bleek) : Zt is Jwho send you into the midst of such dangers ; conduct 
yourselves, then, in such circumstances in a manner becoming those who 
are my messengers ; be wise as serpents, and so on. — de xpéBara év pécw 
Zixov| tanquam oves, ete., i.e., so that, as my messengers, you will be in the 
position of sheep in the midst of wolves. Usually év péow Abx. is made to 
depend on arooréA2w, in which case év, in accordance with its well-known 
pregnant force,® would not only express the direction of the verb, but also 
convey the idea of continuing in the position in question, while é¢ would 
have the meaning of as. This is harsh, inasmuch as the dzooréA2o, which 





1 Euth. Zigabenus : pndév évepynodrw, adda Xi. 51, xviii. 6. 


TavtTnv ped éEavt@v AaBovres eEEADETe, ‘* Let it 4Grotius, Bleek: ‘‘ Nil nobis yobisewm 
accomplish nothing, but having received ultra commercii est. 
this with your own selves, depart.” 5 See Bremi, ad Dem, Philipp. I. 10, p. 119, 
2 Kiihner, II. 1, p. 346. Goth. 
3 Lightfoot, p. 331 f. ; Mischna Surenhusii, ® Bernhardy, p. 208 f. 


VI. p. 151; Wetstein on this passage; Acts 


212 THE GOSPEL OF MATTHEW. 

occurs so often in the New Testament, is in no other instance (in Luke iv. 
19 it isan abstract expression) used in such a local sense. Moreover, év péow 
gives more striking prominence to the danger than the simple év. — axépa:- 
oc]... In view of the dangerous circumstances in which they would be 
placed, Jesus asks of them to combine (a combination to be realized under 
the direction of the Holy Spirit, as in ver. 19) prudence (in the recognition 
of danger, in the choice of means for counteracting it, in regard to their 
demeanor in the midst of it, and so on) with wprightness, which shuns 
every impropriety into which one might be betrayed in the presence of the 
dangers referred to, and therefore refrains from thinking, choosing, or doing 
anything of a questionable nature in connection with them.*—The loftiest 
example of this combination is Jesus Himself ; while among the apostles, so 
far as we know them, the one who ranks highest in this respect is Paul. 

Ver. 17. Aé] denoting continuation of this same matter: ‘‘ But in order 
to comply with this injunction (wswally the wisdom alone is arbitrarily sup- 
posed to be referred to), be on your guard, and so on.” The passage that 
now follows on to ver. 23 originally formed part (comp. Mark xiii. 9 ff.) of 
the eschatological utterances, but the connection in which it now stands 
was probably that in which it was already met with in the collection of 
our Lord’s sayings. Comp. xxiv. 9-13; Luke xxi. 12 ff. Then again, 
taken in detail, the different portions of this address, as given by Matthew, 
possess the advantage of originality.* — ard rév avOpérwv] The article is not 
meant to indicate men who are hostile (ver. 16, Erasmus, Fritzsche), who 
must have been indicated in some other way than by the simple article (by 
tov TowvTwy, or such like), or by the general expression av0pérwv ; but it is 
to be understood generically : men in general, taken as a whole, are conceived 
of as hostile, in accordance with the idea of that xécuo¢ to which the disciples 
do not belong (John xv. 19), and by which they are hated (John xvii. 14). 
— ovvédpia] taken generally, tribunals in general. —év raic ovvay.| That 
scourging also belonged to the synagogal forms of punishment, as a matter 
of synagogue discipline, is placed beyond a doubt by the New Testament.‘ 
The evidence from Rabbinical literature is doubtful. 

Ver. 18. Kai. . . dé] and. . . but (always separated except in the epic 
poets), is of the nature of a climax, introducing still another circumstance, 
whereupon dé follows this new and emphasized thought.® — jyeudvac] com- 
prises the three kinds of provincial chief magistrates, propraetors, proconsuls, 
and procurators.® — ic paptipiov . . . ever] as a testimony to them and to the 
Gentiles, t.e., those wrongs and that violent treatment have this as their 
object, that (through your confession and demeanor) a testimony regarding 
me may be given to the Jews and the Gentiles.’ Let it be observed ; (1) that 


1 Etym. M.: 6 pun Kexpamévos Kakois, add’ 
amAovs kat amoikidos, ‘one not mixed with 
evil, but plain and simple.”” Comp. Rom. 
xvi. 19, Phil. ii. 15, common in classical au- 
thors ; see Ruhnken, ad Tim. p. 18. 

* For Rabbinical passages bearing on the 
wisdom of the serpent (Gen. iii. 1) and the 
innocence of the dove (Hos. vii. 11), see 


Schoettgen. 

3 Comp. Weizsicker, p. 160 ff. 

4 See, besides the Synoptists, Acts xxii. 
19, xxvi. 11 ; 2 Cor. xi. 24. 

5 Hartung, Partikell. J. p. 181 f.; Klotz, ad 
Devar. p. 645; Baeumlein, Partik. p. 148 f. 

6 Fischer, de vit. Lex. N.T. p. 482 ff. 

7 Comp. viii. 4, xxiv. 14. 


CHAP. X., 19-22. 213 
it is arbitrary to refer ele paptipiov, as is usually done, merely to the last 
point, kai éxi #yeudvac, etc., seeing that everything, in fact, from rapaddoover 
onwards, belongs to one category and has one common aim ; (2) that 
avroic, therefore, cannot point to the yyeudvac and Bacrieic, to whom it is 
commonly referred (Baumgarten-Crusius, Bleek), though not in keeping 
with the distinction expressed by kai roic é@vecw, for the truth is, the pro- 
curators and kings were Gentiles also ; but that, as is at once suggested to 
the reader by this adding on of kai roic évecvv, it rather refers to the Jews 
(Maldonatus, Bengel, Lange, Hilgenfeld, Schegg, following Theophylact), 
who (airév, ver. 17) are the active subjects of rapadécover, pactiydcover, and 
partly also of ay@joeobe ; (8) that, according to the context, roic iveowv, to 
the Gentiles, refers to the jyeudvac and Baoireic and their Gentile environment ; 
(4) and lastly, that the further reference of wapriprov is to be gathered from 
a testimony of me, regarding my person and work. The dative 
case, however, is that of reference as regards the papripiov ; to define more 
specifically would be an unwarrantable liberty. This is applicable to the 
view adopted since Chrysostom : ei¢ Aeyyov abtév (Theophylact, Euth. Zig- 
abenus, Erasmus, Beza, Maldonatus, Kuinoel), although this is included in 
that general reference. 

Vy. 19, 20. But now, when the delivering of you up actually takes 
place, give yourselves no anxious concern, and so on.—# ri] not Kai ri, 
but the distinctive expression used renders more fully prominent the two 
elements, the how and the what.’ The difficulty, first of all, is with regard to 
the zac ; observe, however, that in the sequel only ri is used.?— dobfoerar] 
not docebitur, but suggeretur, by God through the Holy Spirit, Isa. 1. 4 ; Eph. 
vi. 19; 1 Cor. ii. 10 ff.; Luke xxi. 15.—Observe the difference between ri 
Zadgqonre and ti Aadjoete (What you ought to speak, and what you will speak).* 
. aA24] In this decided, and not in any half and half way, does Jesus 
conceive of that relation, in virtue of which His disciples were to become 


évekev ELov : 





—ouv.. 


mvevpatiKoig TvevuatiKa ovyKpivovtec (1 Cor. ii. 13). — éoré] the future situation 
is thought of as present. 

Ver. 21. Comp. Mic. vii. 6. —éravaorjo.] not merely before the judges, 
but generally. It is the expression in classical Greek for rebellious rising,* 
in Greek authors usually with the dative, also with éxé ri. — @avatdcovor | 
take away life (xxvi. 59), t.¢., bring about their execution. A vivid expression. 
Comp. also xxvii. 1. The reason of this hostile treatment is self-evident, 
but may be further seen from ver. 22. 

Ver. 22. ‘Yxd révtwv] Popular way of expressing the universal character 
of the hatred.—dva 7d dvoud pwov] because you confess and preach it.°— 
broueivac| whosoever will have persevered in the confessing of my name. 


1 Dissen, ad Dem. de cor. p. 264, in which 
“eleganter notatur cura” (Bengel). 

2“ Ubi to quid obtigit, 76 qguomodo non 
deest,”” “where the what is supplied the 
how is not wanting,” Bengel. 

3 For this use of ri, see Bernhardy, p. 448, 
Kiihner, IT. 2, p. 1016. 

4 énavactacis, 2 Kings iii. 4; Kriiger, ad 


Dion. p. 55, 

5 Tertullian, Apol. 2: ‘‘Torquemur confi- 
tentes et punimur perseverantes et absolvi- 
mur negantes, quia nominis proelium est,”’ 
“We are tortured for confessing, and pun- 
ished for persisting, and absolved for deny- 
ing, because the contest is about our 
name.” 


214 THE GOSPEL OF MATTHEW. 


This is to be inferred from dvd 75 évowa pov. Comp. note on xxiv. 13. — éic¢ 
rédoc].1 Others think that the end of life is meant, or (as also Bleek) mingle 
together a variety of references. Contrary to ver. 23. — cafec#a] obtain 
the blessedness of the Messianic kingdom. 

Ver. 23. Tatty and ry adanv are to be understood deckrindc. Jesus points 
with the finger in the direction of various towns. Your sphere is large 
enough to admit of your retreating before persecution in order to save others. 
— yip| A ground of encouragement for such perseverance. — ov py redéonre, 
.t.2.] You will not have completed your visits to the towns of the people of 
Israel ; 7.e., you will not have accomplished in all of them your mission, 
associated as it will be with such flights from town to town.? The inter- 
pretation : to bring to Christian perfection (Maldonatus, Zeger, Jansen, fol- 
lowing Hilary ; Hofmann),* is an erroneous makeshift, by way of removing 
the second coming farther into the future. Observe that here, too, as in ver. 
5, the apostolic ministry is still confined to Israel. — éw¢ dy é20y] until the Son 
of man will have come, i.e., the Messiah, such as He has been promised in 
Daniel’s vision (vili. 20), who will then put an end to your troubles, and re- 
ceive you into the glory of His kingdom. Jesus means neither more nor 
less than His second coming (Matt. xxiv.), which He announces even at this 
early stage, and as being so near, that xxiv. 14, and even xvi. 28, are not to be 
reconciled with this view. Different elements of the tradition, which, in 
the course of experience, came to view the prospect as more remote, —a tradi- 
tion, however, that was still the product of the existing yeved (xxiv. 34, xiv. 
28). The interpretations which explain away the final coming, content them- 
selves, some with the idea of a vague coming after or coming to their help ;* others 
with the coming through the Holy Spirit (Calvin, Grotius, Calovius, Bleek), 
or with supposing that the, as yet too remote, destruction of Jerusalem is re- 
ferred to (Michaelis, Schott, Glickler, Ebrard, Gess); and others, again, 
explaining it allegorically of the victory of Christ’s cause (Baumgarten- 
Crusius). On the prediction of the second coming itself, see on ch. xxiv. 

Ver. 24. Similarly, what follows from here on to the close consists of 
anticipations of later utterances. Comp. as far as ver. 33; Luke xii. 1 ff., 
and from ver. 84 onward ; Luke xii. 49 ff.—Do not be surprised at such 
intimations beforehand of the sad troubles that await you ; for (as the prov- 
erb has it) you need not expect a better fate than that which befalls your 
Lord and Master. Comp. John v. 20 ; Rabbinical passages in Schoettgen, 
p. 98. 

Ver. 25. ’Apkerdv 7@ pabyrh, iva, x.7.A.] It is enough for the disciple he should 
be as his Master, i.e., let him satisfy himself with being destined to share the 
same fate ; a better he cannot claim. For iva, comp. John vi. 29 and the 
note upon it. — kai 6 dovdoc, x.7.4.] by attraction for nat 7 dobAw, iva yévytat 


1 Usque ad finem horum malorum (Theophy- the passage). 
lact, Beza, Fritzsche). 3 Weissag. u. Erfiill. Il. p. 267 f. 

2Comp, the analogous use of avvew 4 Chrysostom, Theophylact, Euth. Ziga- 
(Raphel, Krebs, Loesner, on this passage), benus, Beza, Kuinoel; even Origen and 
explere, in Tibull. i. 4.69 (Heyne, Odss. p. 47); Theodoret, Heracleon in Cramer’s Cat. p. 
consummare, in Flor, i, 18, 1 (see Ducker on 78. 


CHAPS.) 2652225 215 
dc 6 Kip. avtov.1— BeealeBova, name of the devil, which the majority of mod- 
ern critics (Kuinoel, Fritzsche, de Wette, Bleek, Grimm) agree, with Light- 
foot and Buxtorf, in deriving from 73 and aah. dominus stercoris, an expres- 
sion intended to designate with loathing the prince of all moral impurity. It 
is supposed, at the same time, that the name Beelzebud, the Philistine god 
of flies, by being changed into Beelzedul (god of dung), came to be employ- 
ed, in a jocular way, asa name for the devil. See below on the reading 
BeeAleBovB. But, as against the meaning god of dung, there is (1) the form 
of the name itself, which, if derived from rele should have been spelt BeeA- 
faBya, or BeeAfaBeA, according to the analogy of ’IefaByA Qare), or IelaBer 
(Rey. ii. 20). (2) The fact that Jesus’ own designation of Himself as oixo- 
dearérne is evidently chosen with reference to the meaning of BeeAeBoiA, as 
indeed is clear from deorétn¢= Sy, and that, accordingly, the name BeeAfeBoba 
must contain something corresponding to olxoc as well. This being so, it is 
preferable to derive the word from 5y3'and 337, a dwelling,? according to 
which the devil, as lord of his domain, in which the evil spirits dwell, was 
called Dominus domicilii (but neither tartari, as Paulus, nor domicilii coelestis, 
as Hilgenfeld, Keim, suppose). Jesus was, in relation to His disciples (rov¢ 
oixtaxove avtov), the Herus domesticus, N°AI ya ;* but, in malicious jest, they 
applied to Him the corresponding name of the devil: Herus Domicilit. 
Jerome wrote BeeAfeBob3, from 2331, museca, i.e., Dominus muscarum. Such 
was the name given to a fortune-telling divinity of the Ekronites (2 Kings 
i. 2, 16), which during an illness was consulted by King Ahaziah, and to 
which, in connection with the very ancient heathen worship of flies, was 
ascribed the dominion over those insects, and which therefore was supposed, 
at the same time, to have the power of averting this scourge of the East.* 
But critical testimony most decidedly preponderates in favour of the read- 
ing BeeAfeBovs, which might easily have been changed into BeeAfeov3, on 
account of what is found in 2 Kings i.; and the greater the correspond- 
ence between the meaning of the former name and that of oikodearérne¢, it is 
also the more likely to be the correct form. — That the Jews really called 
Jesus BeeAfe3ob2, is not elsewhere stated in any of the Gospels, though from 
our present passage the fact cannot be doubted, while is it probably con- 
nected with the accusation in ix. 34, xii. 34, though going rather further. 

Vv. 26, 27. Ov] inference from vv. 24, 25: since, from the relation in 
which, as my disciples, you stand to me as\your Master, it cannot surprise 
you, but must only appear as a necessary participation in the same fate, if 
they persecute you.—The ydp which follows, then, conjoins with the j7 ¢0f. 
air. a further awakening consideration—that, namely, which arises out of the 
victorious publicity which the gospel is destined to attain ; whereupon is 
added, in ver. 27, the exhortation—an exhortation in keeping with this 
divine destiny of the gospel—to labor boldly and fearlessly as preachers of 
that which He communicates to them in private intercourse, This addition 


1 Winer, p. 583 [E. T. 783]. 3 Buxtorf, Lex. Talm. p. 333. 
2 Gusset, Michaelis, Paulus, Jahn, Hitzig, 4Plin. WV. H. x. 28; Pausan. viii. 26, 27; 
Philistdéer, p. 314; Hilgenfeld, Volkmar. Aelian. H. A. v. 17; Solin. Polyh. 1. 


216 THE GOSPEL OF MATTHEW. 

is the more emphatic from there being no connecting particle to introduce 
it. The thought, ‘‘elucescet tandem orbi vestra sinceritas,” ‘‘ your sincer- 
ity shall shine forth at length to the world,” which others (Chrysostom, 
Theophylact, Theodoret, Heracleon in Cramer’s Cat., Erasmus, Grotius, 
Beza) have found in ver. 26, as well as the reference to the judgment (Hil- 
genfeld), are equally at variance with the context, as seen in ver. 27. For 
the figurative contrasting of cxoria amd @éc, in the case of Aéyerv and such 
like, comp. Soph. Phil. 578, and Wunder in loc.; for ele rt. obc, also a 
common expression among classical writers for what is told in confidence, see 
Valckenaer, ad Hurip. Hipp. 982. 

Ver. 28. Tov duvvayevov. . . yeévvy] whois ina position to consign body 
and soul, at the day of judgment, to everlasting destruction in Gehenna. 
Comp. v. 29. It is God that is meant, and not the devil (Olshausen, Stier). 
Comp. Jas. iv. 12 ; Wisd. xvi. 18-15. — goPeioba: ard, as a rendering of 87). 
12, and expressing the idea of turning away from the object of fear, occurs 
often in the LXX. and Apocrypha; the only other instance in the New 
Testament is Luke xii. 4 ; not found in classical writers at all, though they 
use ¢6Bo¢ ax6.'— waAdov] potius.? 

Ver. 24. Further encouragement by pointing to the providence of God. 
—orpovlia] The diminutive is used advisedly.* Two small sparrows for a 
single farthing. The latter was one-tenth of a drachma, and subsequently 
it was still less. It is also used by Rabbinical writers to denote the smallest 
possible price of anything.*— xai] is simply and, and placed first in the 
answer, Which is, in fact, a continuation of the thought contained in the 
question.° —év] a single. — receira: éxi rt. yzv] not spoken of the bird that is 
caught in the snare or gin (Irenaeus, Chrysostom, Euth. Zigabenus), but of 
that which has dropped dead from the sky or the branches. — dvev] indepen- 
dently of, without the interference ; the reading dvev ti¢ BovAge tov rarp. bu. 18 
an old and correct gloss. ° 

Ver. 30. ‘Yuav dé] Put first by way of emphasis.” 
the providentia specialissima.* 

Ver. 32 f. Ilae otv, x.r.A.] Nominative, like ver. 14. —é éuoi] is neither 
a Hebraism nor a Syriac mode of expression ; nor does it stand for the 
dative of advantage ; nor does it mean through me (Chrysostom); but the 
personal object of confession is conceived of as the one to whom the confes- 
sion cleaves. Exactly as in Luke xii. 8. Similar to duview év, v. 34.—In the 
apodosis, notice the order : confess will I also him (as really one of mine, and 


Poetical expression for 


1 Xen. Cyr. iii. 3. 53; Polyb. ii. 35. 9, ii. 59. arep deov, and sine Diis, Isa. xxxvi. 10. 


8. 
2Euth. Zigabenus: #d6Bov oty amdcacte 
$oBw, Tov Tov avdpwrwv To TOU Seod, ‘* Thrust 
away fear by fear, the fear of men by the 
fear of God.” 

8 Comp. Ps. xi. 1, Ixxxiy. 3; Aristot. H. 
AN. VereglXaits 

4Buxtorf, Lex. Talm. p. 175, Lightfoot, 
Schoettgen. 

5 See Kiihner, ad Xen, Mem. ii. 10. 2. 

6 Comp. the classical expressions avev deovd, 


7 Euth. Zigabenus aptly observes: wets 
5€ TocovTOV é€aTE TimLoL, WOTE Kal Tadas ULaV 
Tpixas Hpuiunmevas eivar mapa Seod.. . Kat 
AetTOMEp@s olde TavTa TA Kad’ Vuas, ‘You are 
so worthy that even all the hairs of your 
heads have been numbered by God... . 
and He knows to the smallest particle all 
that appertains to you.” 

8 Comp. Luke xxi. 18; Acts xxvii. 34; 1 
Sam. xiv. 45; 2 Sam. xiv. 11; 1 Kings i. 52; 
Plato, Legg. x. p. 900 C. 


CHAP. X., 34-39. 217 


SO On). —éurpoofey . . . oipavoic] namely, after my ascension to the glory of 
heaven as ctv@povoc of the Father, xxvi. 64 ; comp. Rev. iii. 5. — Vv. 32 
and 33 contain, as an inference from all that has been said since ver. 16, a 
final observation in the form of a promise and a threatening, and expressed 
in so general a way that the disciples are left to make the special application 
for themselves.—The address, which is drawing to a close in ver. 33, pur- 
sues still further the same lofty tone, and that in vivid imagery, in ver. 
34, so full is Jesus of the thought of the profound excitement which He 
feels He is destined to create. 

Ver. 34. "HAGov Badeiv] The telic style of expression is not only rhetorical, 
indicating that the result is unavoidable, but what Jesus expresses is a pur- 
pose,—not the jinal design of His coming, but an intermediate purpose,—in 
seeing clearly presented to His view the reciprocally hostile excitement as a 
necessary transition, which He therefore, in keeping with His destiny as 
Messiah, must be sent first of all to bring forth. — Badeiv] an instance of 
zeugma, in which the thought of a sword is the predominant one, after 
which the verb also spontaneously suggested itself for eip7#vjv, and all the 
more naturally the more sudden and powerful was to be the excitement of 
men’s minds, which He, instead of a comfortable peace, was to bring 
about. 

Vv. 35, 36. Comp. ver. 21. Involuntary recollection of Mic. vii. 6. *— 
7200v yap| solemn repetition. — diyaoar] to separate (Plat. Polit. p. 264 D), 
i.€., to place a man in that attitude of party hostility (duyooracia) toward his 
father which results in their separation, and so on. —viudn : young wife (com- 
mon in classical writers), specially in the sense of daughter-in-law (in the 
LXX.). — kai éyOpoi, x.t.2.] imminent, as if already present : and a man’s 
enemies (are) the members of his own family! éxOpot is a predicate. 

Ver. 37. Demeanor in the midst of this excitement: the love of the 
family on no account to take precedence of love to Christ, but quite the 
reverse |! The inalienable rights of family affection remain intact, but in 
subordination to the love of Christ, which determines how far it is of a truly 
moral nature. — ov a&coc] worthy to belong to me as his Lord and Master. 
Comp. Luke xiv. 26. 

Ver. 38. To take up his cross means, willingly to undergo the severe trials 
that fall to his lot (2 Cor. i. 5 ; Phil. iii. 10). Figurative expression, bor- 
rowed from the practice according to which condemned criminals were 
compelled to take up their own cross and carry it to the place of execution ; 
xxvii. 32.2 The form of this expression, founded as it is upon the kind of 
death which Christ Himself was to die, is one of the indications of that 
later period from which the passage from ver. 24 onward has been trans- 
ferred to its present connection. Matthew himself betrays the prolepsis in 
xvi. 24 f. ; comp. Mark viii. 34 ; Luke xiv. 27. — dziow wov : in conformity 
with the Hebrew “Ns. 

Ver. 39. Yuyfv and air#v have no other meaning than that of soul (ii. 20, 


1 Comp. also Sota xlix. 2, in Schoettgen. divin. i. 26; Valer. Max. xi. 7. 
2 Luke xxiii. 26; John xix. 16 ; Artemid. 3Comp., however, akoA, KatTémw Twvds, 
ii. 56, p. 153; Plut. Dor. p. 554 A; Cic. de Arist. Plut. xiii, 


218 THE GOSPEL OF MATTHEW. 

vi. 25, ix. 28) ; but the point lies in the reference of the jinding and losing 
not being the same in the first as in the second half of the verse. ‘‘ Whoever 
will have found his soul (by a saving of his life in this world through deny- 
ing me in those times when life is endangered), will lose it (namely, through 
the azéAera, vii. 18, the eternal death at the second coming ; comp. Luke 
ix. 24 f.) ; and whoever will have Jost his soul (through the loss of his life 
in this world in persecution, through an act of self-sacrifice), will find it” 
(at the resurrection to the eternal (w7); cwfjoera, ver. 22.1 The jinding in 
the jirst half, accordingly, denotes the saving of the ~uyf, when to all ap- 
pearance hopelessly endangered from temporal death ; while, in the second, 
it denotes the saving of the yuy4 after it has actually succumbed to death, 
The former is a finding that issues in eternal death ; the latter, one that 
conducts to eternal life. 

Vv. 40-42. Before concluding, the reassuring statement is added that : 
In all such troubles you are to have the less hesitation in claiming to be entertained 
and supported by believers ; the holier the deeds and the greater (in the Messianic 
kingdom) the reward of those will prove to be who so receive and maintain you.? 

Ver. 41. A general expression, the special reference of which to the dis- 
ciples is found in ver. 42. — eic¢ dvoual from a regard to that which the name 
implies, to the prophetic character.* Therefore ; for the sake of the cause 
which stamps them with their distinguishing characteristics, for sake of the 
divine truth which the prophet interprets from the revelation that has been 
made to him, and for sake of the integrity which the dixcacoc exhibits in his 
life. — dixaiov] an upright man, correct parallel to rpodjryv. The apostles, 
however, belong to both categories, inasmuch as they receive and preach the 
revelation (xpogyra:) communicated by God through Christ, and seeing that, 
through their faith in the Lord, they are characterized by true and holy 
righteousness of life (dixavoc).—The reward of a prophet and of a righteous 
man is the same reward, which they will receive (in the Messianic kingdom). 

Ver. 42. "Eva . . . tobtwv] a single one of these (derxtixac) little ones. Ac- 
cording to the whole context, which has been depicting the despised and 
painful circumstances of the disciples, and is now addressing to them the 
necessary encouragement, it is to be regarded as intentional and significant 
that Jesus employs the term jcpov (not wabyrov), an expression which (in 
answer to Wetstein) is not usual among Rabbinical writers to convey the 
idea of disciples. Otherwise xviii. 6. — pévov] only, connected with what 
precedes, — rv piobdv airoi| the reward awaiting him, in the kingdom of the 
Messiah ; v. 12.‘ 


1 For aroAd, wuxyv, comp. Eur. Hec. 21;  Zigabenus. In Rabbinical writers we find 


Anth. Pal. vii. 272. 2. 

2Euth. Zigabenus appropriately ob- 
Serves : TavTa eimev avolywv Tols padytais Tas 
olklas TOY murTevovTwy. Comp. with ver. 40, 
John xiii. 20; and with ver. 41 f., comp. 
Mark ix. 37, 41. 

36’ aio 70 ovonagerdar Kai elvar, Euth, 


pw). Schoettgen, p. 107; Buxtorf, Zez. 
Talm. p. 2431. 

* Grotius says correctly : ‘‘ Docemur hic, 
facta ex animo, non animum ex factis apud 
Deum aestimari,’ “‘We are taught here 
that deeds are estimated in God’s sight by 
the spirit, not the spirit by the deeds.” 


CHAP. XI. 219 


CHAPTER XI. 


Ver. 2. 6:4] Elz. Griesb. Matthaci, Scholz: dvo, against B C* DPZA 8, 
33, 124, Syr. utr. Arm. Goth. Codd. of It. From Luke vii. 19. — Ver. 8. 
ivariowc] wanting in B D Z &, Vulg. Tert. Hil. al. Bracketed by Lachm., de- 
leted by Tisch. Interpolation from Luke. __ Ver. 9. ideiv 3 xpogytny 3] Tisch. : 
mpoontnv iWelv ; (with mark of interrogation after £5740.) SoBZ N*. The Re- 
ceived text, notwithstanding its preponderance of testimony, is a mechanical 
conformation to ver. 8 (comp. Luke). __Ver. 10. Lachm. has bracketed yap and 
éyo. The former only has important testimony against it (BD Z &, Codd. of 
It. Syr™" Or.), is likewise deleted by Tisch., though it may easily have been 
omitted in consequence of a comparison with Luke vii. 27. — On far too inade- 
quate testimony, Lachm. and Tisch. 7 have «ai instead of dc. —-Ver, Lo. 
axovet] is not found in BD, 32. Here and in xiii. 9, 48, it is bracketed by 
Lachm. and correctly deleted by Tisch. Borrowed from Mark and Luke, 
where, in all the passages, axovev cannot be disputed. — Ver. 16 £. madiow év 
dyopaig Kafnuévorg Kat mpoogwvorat Tols ETaipoLc abrav Kat Aéyovow] Rinck, Tucubr. 
crit. p. 257 f.; Lachm. and Tisch. : savdiouw Kafnpévorc tv ayopG (Tisch. 7: 
ayopaic, Tisch. 8: tai¢ ayop.) & mpoopwvovrta TOL éralpoce (Tisch. : éréporc) Aéyovowv. 
On the strength of preponderating testimony this whole reading is to be pre- 
ferred ; it was partially altered in accordance with Luke vii, 32. But the bal- 
ance of the testimony is decidedly infavor of substituting éréporc for éraipolg 5 
and the former is to be preferred all the more that, for exegetical reasons, :it 
was much more natural to adopt the latter. Testimony is also decidedly in 
favor of év ayopaic, and that without the article (which is found only in 
BZ &). — Gpnrqe. tuiv) Lachm. and Tisch. have merely é4pnv7o., according to 
BCD ZX, Curss. Verss. and Fathers. Correctly ; tuiv is inserted from what 
precedes.—Tisch. 8 has épywv instead of Téxvar, but only after B* &, 124, Codd- 
in Jerome, and Verss. (also Syr.). An interpretation (a. T. pyar tov vi. a.).— 
Ver. 23. # éa¢ Tod obpavov tpobeica] EFGSUVII**. Curss. Syr. p. Chrys. : 
f wo Tov ovpavov bWaOne (approved by Griesb. and Rinck, also Tisch. 7, who, 
however, has correctly deleted tov). But B C D**&, 1, 22, 42, Copt. Aeth. 
Pers. Wh. Vulg. Corb. For. Ir. (comp. Colb. Germ.) : pi) gag obpavod bpolnry. 
The reading of the Received text must be given up, then, on account of the ex- 
ternal testimony, and either 7). . - ipoOng or pi}. + - ipwobjoy is to be read. 
The former is to be preferred. The reading p7, etc., originated in the final 
syllable of Kagapvaodu having been twice written by the copyist, which neces- 
sarily involved the change of bane into pohjon. The other variations arose 
out of a misunderstanding as to H. It was taken for the article, hence the 
reading in the Received text: 7 -.- - ipoleica. The interrogative reading, /27, 
ete. (Lachm. Tisch. 8), is foreign to the sense (you will not be raised to heaven, 
surely ?), a reflection that is here out of place.—KarapiBac6707] Lachm. and Tisch. 
7: karaBjon, after B D, It. Vulg. Syr. al. Ir, Correctly ; the reading of the Re- 


220 THE GOSPEL OF MATTHEW. 


ceived text is from Luke x. 15, where the testimony in favor of karaByop is 
somewhat weaker. 


Ver. 1. Exei#ev] from where the sending out of the apostles took place. 
It is impossible to define the locality further ; at all events Capernaum is 
not intended, but some open space (ix. 36) on the road, along which Jesus 
was at that time prosecuting his journey through Galilee (ix. 85). Whilst 
the Twelve were out on their missionary tour, Jesus continued His labors 
by Himself ; and it was during this interval also that He was visited by 
the messengers from the Baptist. Where these latter happened to find 
Him, it is impossible to say. For the return of the Twelve, see note on 
ver. 25. —aitov] in the towns of those to whom He came (the Galileans). 
Comp. iv. 23, ix. 35, xii. 9. Fritzsche refers airév to the apostles : in 
which the apostles had already published the knowledge of the kingdom. Incor- 
rectly, for the weréBy, x.7.2., follows at once and immediately upon the 
conclusion of the instructions to the Twelve.! 

Vv. 2 ff. Comp. Luke vii. 18 ff., where the account is introduced some- 
what earlier, and where nothing is said about the prison (but see Luke iii. 
20). — dkovoac, x.t.A.] Occasion of the message. See the note after ver. 5. 
— év T@ decuwr.| in the fortress of Machaerus.? See on xiv. 3. How John 
could hear anything of Jesus’ works in prison was possible in various ways ; 
most naturally it was through his disciples, with whom he was permitted to 
have intercourse. Luke vii. 18.— 7a épya] are the deeds, the first element 
in the roveiv te Kal Siddoxew (Actsi. 1). These were for the most part miracles, 
though there is no reason to suppose that they were exclusively so. See on 
John v. 36. — réuac] absolutely.? The following dca rév wafyr. aitov belongs 
to elrev ato, not to réupac (de Wette), because this latter connection 
would involve the supposition of a Hebraism, 73 mW, 1 Sam. xvi. 20, 1 
Kings ii. 25, Ex. iv. 138, which is in itself unnecessary. 

Ver. 3. 30] Placed first for sake of emphasis, Comp. érepov. — 6 épydpevoc] 
He who is coming (Heb. x. 37), i.e., the Messiah, who, because His advent, 
as being certain and near, was the object of universal expectation, is 
called, kar’ éoyhv, the coming one (839), perhaps in accordance with Ps. xl. 
8. Olshausen, Hilgenfeld, Keim, suggest Ps. exvill. 26; Hengstenberg 
suggests Mal. iii. 1; Hitzig, Dan. ix. 26. —érepov] so that thou too wouldst, 
in that case, be only a forerunner. — rpocdoxOuev] may be conjunctive (as 
commonly preferred) or indicative (Vulg. Erasmus, Beza, Calvin, Fritzsche). 
The idea of deliberation is, for psychological reasons, more appropriate. 
The we in the question is the expression of the popular expectation. 

Vv. 5, 6. In words that seem an echo of Isa. xxxv. 5 f., 8, lxi. 1 ff, 
though, in accordance with existing circumstances, embracing some ad- 
ditional matters, Jesus draws His answer clearly and decidedly from the 


1 On the following section, see Wieseler Eriang. Zeitschr. 1857, p. 167 ff. ; Keim, II. p. 
in the G6ttingen Vierteljahrschr. 1845, p. 197 355 ff. 
ff.; Gams, Joh. d. T. im Gefiingn. 1853; 2 Joseph. Antt. xviii. 5. 2. 
Gademann, in d. Luth. Zeitschr. 1852, 4; 3 Xen. Anabd. vii. 1.2; Hell. iii. 2.9; Thue. 
Grote, ibid. 1857, 3, p. 518 ff. Comp. also i, 91.2; Bornem. Schol. in Luc. p. xy. 


CHAP: XI., 5, 6. 221 


well-known facts of His ministry, which prove Him to be the épyéuevoc fore- 
told in prophecy.* The words of the answer form a réswmé of cases such as 
those in viii. 2, ix. 1, 23, 27, 32; therefore they cannot have been intended 
to be taken in the sense of spiritual redemption, which Jesus might lay claim 
to as regards His works (in answer to de Wette, Keim, Wittichen).?*— 
mTwyol evayyeA. | well-known passive construction, as in Heb. iv. 2, 6; Gal. 
ii. 7; Rom. iii, 2; Heb. xi. 2; Bernhardy, p. 341 f. —xrwyoi] are the 
poor, the miserable, the friendless, the oppressed and helpless multitude 
(comp. on v. 38), elsewhere compared to sheep without a shepherd (ix. 36), 
and likened a little further on to a bruised reed and smoking flax (xii. 20). 
Such people crowded about our Lord, who proclaimed to them the Messi- 
anic deliverance. And this deliverance they actually obtained when, as rrwyot 
7@ rvebart, V. 38, they surrendered themselves to His word under a deep heart- 
felt consciousness of their need of help.— cxavdaA. év éuoi| will have been offended 
in me, so as to have come to entertain false views concerning me, so as to 
have ceased to believe in me, to have come to distrust me ; xiii. 57, xxvi. 
31, 33 ; comp. on v. 29. 


Remarx.—Judging from John’s question, ver. 2, and Jesus’ reply, ver. 6, it 
is neither unwarrantable nor, as far as can be seen, incompatible with the 
evangelic narrative, to assume that nothing else is meant than thal John was 
really in doubt as to the personal Messiahship of Jesus and the nature of that Messiah- 
ship altogether,—a doubt, however, which, after the honorable testimony of 
Jesus, ver. 7 ff., cannot be regarded as showing a want of spirituality, nor as 
inconsistent with the standpoint and character of one whom God had sent as 
the forerunner, and who had been favored with a divine revelation, but only 
as a temporary eclipse of his settled conviction, which, owing to human in- 
firmity, had yielded to the influence of despondency. This condition isso ex- 
plicable psychologically from the popular nature of the form which he expected 
the Messianic kingdom to assume on the one hand, as well as from his impris- 
onment on the other, coupled with the absence of any interposition in his 
favor on the part of Him who, as Messiah in the Baptist’s sense, should have 
given things a totally different turn by manifesting Himself in some sudden, 
overwhelming, and glorious crisis, and so analogous to undoubted examples of 
the same thing in other holy men (Moses, Elias), that there is no foundation 
for the view that, because of this question of the Baptist (which Strauss even 
regards as an expression of the first beginnings of his faith), the evangelic ac- 
counts of his earlier relation to Jesus are to be regarded as overdrawn (on the 
other hand, Wieseler, J.c. p. 203 ff.),—a view which seems to be shared by 
Weizsiicker, p. 320, and Schenkel. Actual doubt was the cause of the question, 
and furnished the occasion for informing him about the works of Jesus, which, as 
characteristic marks of the Messiah, formed again a counterpoise to his doubts, 
and so awoke an internal conflict in which the desire to call upon Jesus finally 
to declare Himself was extremely natural ; and, accordingly, there is no reason 
for Strauss’ wonder that, ere this, ov« dxotcac has not been substituted in ver. 2 
as a likely reading instead of dxovoac. From all this, and without importing any 


1 Comp. Luke iy. 18. 1836, p. 106 ff.; Weiss, Did. Theol., ed. 2, 
2 Comp. Schweizer in the Stud. u. Krit. p. 48; Hofmann, Schrifibew. II. 1, p. 181. 


Q22 THE GOSPEL OF MATTHEW. 


subjective element into the accounts, it is to be considered as settled that the 
Baptist’s question proceeded from real doubt as to whether Jesus was the ép- 
vouevoc, yea ornay ; nor is itfor a moment to be limited (Paulus, Olshausen, 
Neander, Fleck, Kuhn, Ebrard, de Wette, Wieseler, Dodllinger, and several 
others ; comp. also Hofmann, Weissag. u. Erf. 11. p. 75; Lichtenstein, DL, J. p. 
256 ; Hausrath, Zeitgesch. I. p. 388; Gess, Chr. Pers. u. Werk, I. p. 352) to 
doubts regarding the true nature of the Messiah's manifestation and works ; but 
still less is the whole narrative to be explained by supposing, in accordance 
with the time-honored exegetical tradition, that John sent the message for the 
benefit of his own disciples, to confirm in them a belief in Jesus as the Messiah 
(Origen in Cramer’s Catena, Chrysostom, Augustine, Jerome, Hilary, Theophy- 
lact, Euth. Zigabenus, Minster, Luther, Caivin, Beza, Melanchthon, Clarius, 
Zeger, Jansen, Maldonatus, Grotius, Calovius, Bengel), or by seeing in it an 
expression of impatience, and an indirect challenge to the Messiah to establish His 
kingdom without delay (Lightfoot, Michaelis, Schuster in Eichhorn’s Bibl. XI. p. 
1001 ff.; Leopold, Joh. d. Tauf. 1825, p. 96 ; Kuinoel, Fritzsche, Hase). The 
correct view was substantially given by so early a writer as Tertullidn, and sub- 
sequently by Wetstein, Thies, J. E. Ch. Schmidt, Ammon, Lofiler, kl. Schriften, 
Il. p. 150 ff.; Neander, Krabbe, Bleek, Riggenbach, and several others ; comp. 
also Ewald, Gesch. Chr. p. 420, who, however, supposes at the same time that 
the disciples of John may have been urging him to tell them plainly whether 
they ought to transfer their allegiance to Jesus or not; similarly Keim, who 
thinks that John, though hesitating between the alternative : Heis the Messiah 
and He is not so, was nevertheless more disposed in favor of the affirmative- 
view ; so also Schmidt in the Jahrb. f. D. Th. 1869, p. 638 ff., who notices the 
way in which, as he supposes, the Baptist belies his former testimony regard- 
ing Christ. 


Ver. 7. The answer to John’s question has been given ; the disciples are 
withdrawing ; but just as they are going away (ropevouévwv) Jesus turns to 
the multitude that was present, and with some emotion proceeds to set forth 
to them, in the plainest way possible, the sacred character and the whole 
position of the Baptist, and by this means seeks to anticipate or correct any 
false opinion that might be formed regarding him.—The mark of interroga- 
tion should be placed after @edcaca: (in answer to Paulus and Fritzsche, who 
put it even after épyuov) ; according to the correct reading (see the critical re- 
marks), the animated style of the passage does not change till ver. 9, so that 
adda ti é&nAGere forms a question by itself. — é4AGere] at the time that John 
appeared in the wilderness. Observe that here stands @edcacba:, to behold, 
and immediately after the simple ideiv, to sce. The more earnest expression 
is in keeping with the jirst question. —x«é2. cad.] figuratively, in allusion to 
the reed growing on the bank of Jordan, and meaning : a fickle and irreso- 
lute man. Others* understand it literally: ‘non credibile est, vos coivisse, 
ut arundines vento agitatas videretis,” ‘it is not credible that you have come 
together to see reeds shaken by the wind.” Thisis not in keeping with the 
qualifying expression, i7d davéuov catevouevov. And how meaningless the 





1 Beza, Grotius, Wetstein, Gratz, Fritzsche, de Wette. 


CHAP. XI., 8-11. 223 


question would be alongside the parallels in vv. 8, 9! Comp. 1 Kings xiv. 
15; Ezek. xxix. 6. 

Vv. 8, 9. ’A22Aa] no, on the contrary ; it is assumed that what has just been 
asked was not the intention.’ It seems, from the fact of his sending those 
messengers, as if John were (1) a man of hesitating, unstable character, ver. 
7 3 or (2) a voluptuary, whose sole concern was how to exchange his condi- 
tion of hardship for one of luxurious ease, ver. 8. Jesus removes any im- 
pression of this sort by appealing to His hearers to consult their own hearts as 
to what they had ezpected, and what they had found in John. Certainly 
they had expected neither a man of fickle mind, nor a voluptuary ; but what 
they had looked for, that they had found in him, namely a prophet (xxi. 
26), indeed more than a prophet ! Accordingly, there is no apparent reason 
for regarding’ the clauses containing a statement of the intention as the 
rhetorical expression of the result (as if the words were ti éeAdévre¢ ele tiv 
ép. éJedoacbe). But even to find in the negative questions an éronical allu- 
sion to the character of the Galileans (Keim), is foreign to the connection, 
especially as the real motive is given in the third of these questions.—Ver. 
9. vai confirms the mpogarny idetv Which has just been asked (see the critical 
remarks), and that in accordance with its result: ‘‘ Certainly, I tell you (you 
saw a prophet), and more.”  xepicodtepov 1s regarded by Erasmus and 
Fritzsche as masculine.* Nowhere, however, in the New Testament does the 
simple repicadrepoc occur as masculine, and in this instance the interrogative 
zi tells in favor of its being taken as neuter. Comp. xii. 41f. Therefore to 
be rendered : something more (Vulgate : plus) than a prophet,—inasmuch, 
that is, as he is not only the last and greatest of the prophets, but also be- 
cause he was sent by God to prepare the way of the Messiah through the preach- 
ing and baptism of repentance, ver. 10. In a different sense, viz., as the 
source, the aim, and the fulfiller of all prophecy, is Christ more than a 
prophet. * 

Ver. 10 is not an interpolation by the evangelist (Weizsiicker) ; on the 
contrary, it forms the connecting link between vv. 9and 11. The passage 
is Mal, iii. 1, and is a free rendering of the Hebrew and not from the LXX. 
In Malachi, Jehovah speaks of His messenger going before Himself; here, He 
addresses the Messiah ; before Him will He send the messenger (not an 
angel). A free application without any substantial change in the contents 
of the passage, also without any special design in view ; comp. remark on 
lil. 3. 

Ver. 11. ’Ev yevv. yuv.] among those born of woman. Intended to denote 
the category of men according to that nature which is peculiar to the whole 
race in virtue of its origin (mortality, weakness, sinfulness, and so on).° 
For éyfyepra (by God), comp. Luke vii. 16 ; John vii. 52; Acts xiii. 22 f. 
— peilwv| a greater, one more distinguished generally, and that just because he 


1 Hartung, Partikell. Il. p. 88. Klotz,ad@ — corepos, excellentior. 


Devar. p. 18. 4 Comp. Kleinschmidt, d. typolog. Citate d. 
2 Oppenrieder, Zeitschr. f. luth. Theologie, vier Evang. p. 45. 
1856. 6 Sir. x. 18. Comp. MYN-1999, Job xiv. 1, 


8 Symmachus, Gen. xlix. 3: ov« éoy repic- xy. 14, xxv. 4; see also on Gal. iy. 4. 


224 THE GOSPEL OF MATTHEW. 

is this promised herald of God who was to precede the Messiah. The words 
do not warrant our interpreting them to mean : @ greater prophet, as has 
been done by Rosenmiiller, Kuinoel, and the older critics. — 6 dé pxpérepoc, 
k.7.2.] he, however, who is less in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he, It is to 
be observed, (1) that neither here nor elsewhere does the comparative stand 
for the superlative ; (2) that, according to the context, the reference of the 
comparative (see peifov Iwdvvov, and afterwards peifwv aitov) need not be 
looked for elsewhere but in "Iwdvvov rod Barrictod ;* (8) that, since 6 pixpd- 
tepoc cannot refer to Jesus, it is (xviii. 1, 4) necessarily limited and defined 
by év tH BaoiAcia tov ovpavér, With which it has been connected by Isidore, 
Cyril, Theodoret, Heracleon (see Cramer, Cat. p. 85). Hence it is to be ex- 
plained thus : But he who stands lower in the kingdom of the Messiah, stands 
(according to the divine standard) higher than he. Notas if John would be 
excluded (as against this, see x. 41) from the kingdom of Messiah that 
was about to be established, but the standpoint of those who share in the 
kingdom is compared with the high position which, as still belonging to the 
ancient theocracy, the Baptist occupies in the aidy oiroc. There he is the 
greatest of all; yet he whois lower in the approaching kingdom of the 
Messiah, and can by no means compare himself with the eminent personage 
in question, is, nevertheless, greater than he. Thus the facideva tov ovpavar, 
raised above the Old Testament order of things, simply appears as the state 
of perfection towards which the theocracy, ending with John, its fore- 
most representative, is only the jirst step. Others? interpret : he who, as com- 
pared with him, retires into the shade (Jesus, wixpétepoc kata THY HAtkiav Kal KaTa 
Thy ToAAGY doFav, ‘inferior in regard to age and in the estimation of many,” 
Chrysostom) will, as Messiah, outshine him in the kingdom of heaven. These 
expositors have rightly understood the comparative pixpdétepoc as Comparing 
some one with the Baptist ; but how extremely improbable that Jesus, con- 
scious as He was of a Messiahship that had been divinely confirmed at His 
baptism, and with the multitudes flocking around Him, would have spoken 
of Himself as pxpérepo¢ than John the prisoner! And is it not utterly 
foreign to the context to suppose that He would here have compared Him- 
self with the Baptist? Finally, were the év rq Baoieia tov ovpavdv, again 
(referred to what follows), only anawkward toning down of the sharp char- 
acter of the statement, it would have been far more sensible (since Jesus 


1 Therefore not: less than the others who 
participate in the kingdom, as it has been 
commonly understood of late (Winer, Butt- 
mann, Bleek, Weizsiicker, Keim), accord- 
ing to which view the superlative sense is 
developed, as in xviii. 1; Luke xxii. 24. 
So Bengel also: ‘‘minimus in regno coelo- 
Tum est minimus civium regni.”? Keim sar- 
castically observes that, according to the 
view I have given above, John ‘‘ would 
still occupy a subordinate place even in 
heaven,” and I confess that I am at a loss 
to comprehend how one can understand 
ver. 11 in such a way as to exclude (so also 


Schenkel) the Baptist from the kingdom of 
heaven, in which, however, the patriarchs 
and prophets find a place. Where is the Bap- 
tist’s place to be? Outside the kingdom is 76 
oKOTOS TO e€wWTEpor, Vili. 12. And outside the 
church, if this be understood (though erro- 
neously) as what is meant by the kingdom, 
is the xoonos of unbelievers. Thisalso in an- 
swer to Weizsiacker, p. 411f.; Weissenbach, 
p. 31 f.; Weiss. 

2 Chrysostom, Hilary, Theophylact, Euth. 
Zigabenus, Erasmus, Luther, Melanchthon, 
Osiander, Jansen, Corn. & Lapide, Calovius, 
Fritzsche, Fleck, de regno div. p. 83. 


CHAP, XIz, 12: 225 
would mean Himself as the Messiah, whose greatness in the Messianic kingdom 
is a matter of course) if He had merely said with regard to Himself: 6 dé 
puKpdtepoc eilwv avtov éorev. 

Ver. 12. After the remark in passing that 6 62 puxpérepoc, ete., Jesus now 
continues His testimony regarding John, and, in order to prove what He 
had just said of him in vv. 10, 11, He calls attention to the powerful movement 
in favor of the Messiah's kingdom which had taken place since the commencement 
of the Baptist’s ministry. — ard tév jpyep. Iodvy.| This is not the language of 
one belonging to a later period, but only such as Jesus could have used at 
this juncture ; for the days when John labored and flourished were: gone 
by.! — Bidferac|? it is taken possession of by force, is conquered (not magna vt 
pracdicatur, according to the idea imported into the words by Loesner and 
Fritzsche) ;? réAee . . . tag BeBcacpuévac 3 Thuc. iv. 10. 5: Biaforto, it would 
be forced ;* Elwert * would take the present indicative as meaning oul ex- 
pugnari, which is not required by the context. In this way is described 
that eager, irresistible striving and struggling after the approaching Messi- 
anic kingdom’ which has prevailed since the Baptist began to preach ; it 
is as though it were being taken by storm.’ If others have adopted the idea 
of a hostile violence with which the Messianic kingdom is persecuted,* or 
violently (Hilgenfeld) crushed and arrested (by the Pharisees and scribes), 
their view is partly an anachronism, and partly forbidden by the connection 
with ver. 13 and with what goes before. Finally, to take the verb in a 
middle sense, and as describing the breaking in of the kingdom which makes 
its way in spite of all resistance,® is certainly not contrary to usage (Dem. 
779. 2; Lucian, Herm. 70), but inconsistent with the context in which 
Bracrai follows. — kai Bracrai dprafovow aitiy] and those who use violent efforts 
drag it to themselves. 'The anarthrous vacrai is not intended to be emphatic ; 
such is now the character of the times, that those of whom the Biatera holds 
true achieve a speedy success, in that, while they press forward to join the 
ranks of my followers, they clutch at the approaching kingdom as though 
they were seizing spoils, and make it their own. So eager and energetic 
(no longer calm and expectant) is the interest in regard to the kingdom. 
The facrat are, accordingly, believers struggling hard for its possession. 
Jesus Himself (this in answer to Zyro) cannot be included among those who 
are here in view. Those who interpret $:dfera in a hostile sense, render 
dpravovow : they snatch it away from men (according to Schneckenburger, 
they bar the way to it), in allusion to the conduct of the scribes and Phar- 
isees."° 


1 This in answer to Gfrorer, heil. Sage, II. Cyr. iii. 3. 69: Brdcawro elgw ; likewise 
p. 92, and Hilgenfeld. Thue. i. 63, vii. 69; Ael. V. H. xiii. 82; Her- 


2 Hesychius: Braiws cpatetrac. 

3 Xen. H. G. v. 2. 15. 

4Dem. 84. 24; Zosimus, v. 29; 2 Macc. 
xiv. 41. ; 

5 Quaestion. ad philol. sacr. N. T., 1860, p. 19. 

6 Chrysostom : peta omrovdys 
™poovovTes, 

7 Comp. the neuter usage in Luke xvi. 
16 : mas cis avrnv Bragerac ; and further, Xen. 


TAVTES OL 


odian, Vii. 10. 18; Polyb. i. 74. 5, ii. 67. 2, iv. 
WieiD: 

8 Lightfoot, Schneckenburger, Beit. p. 
49. 

9 Melanchthon, Bengel, Baur, Zyro in the 
Stud. u. Krit. 1860, p. 401. 

10 For B.aorys, comp. Pind. O2. ix. 114; 
Pyth. i. 18. 82, iv. 420, vi. 28; Nem. ix. 122; 
Duncan, Zex., ed. Rost, p. 209. In Pindar 


226 THE GOSPEL OF MATTHEW. 

Vv. 13, 14 are by way of showing how it happens that, since the commence- 
ment of the Baptist’s ministry, the Messiah’s kingdom has been the object 
toward which such a violent movement has been directed. All the prophets, 
and even the law, have prophesied wp till John’s time; John was the termi- 
nus ad quem of the period of prophecy which he brought to a close, and he 
who forms the termination of this epoch then steps upon the scene as the 
immediate forerunner of the Messiah—as the Hlias who was to come. Ac- 
cordingly, that new violent stirring of life among the people must be con- 
nected with this manifestation of Elias. Others interpret differently, while 
Bleek and Holtzmann are even inclined to suppose that originally ver. 13 
was uttered before ver. 12.— kai 6 véu0c] for even with this the era of proph- 
ecy began, John v. 46 ; Acts vii. 37 ; Rom. x. 6, xi. 19 ; although prophecy 
was not the principal function of the law, for which reason the prophets are 
here mentioned first. Different in v. 17. — ei 6éAeTe déFacbac] if you—and on 
this it depends whether by you also he is taken for what he is—will not 
reject this assurance (see on 1 Cor. ii. 14), but are disposed to receive it with a 
view to fuller consideration. The reason for interposing this remark is to 
be found in the fact that the unhappy cirewmstances in which John was then 
placed appeared to be inconsistent with such a view of his mission. — avréc] 
no other than He. -—’HAéac] in accordance with Mal. iii. 23 (iv. 5), on which 
the Jews founded the expectation that Elias, who had been taken up into 
heaven, would appear again in bodily form and introduce the Messiah,’— 
an expectation which Jesus regarded as veritably fulfilled in the person and 
work of the Baptist ; in him, according to the ideal meaning of the proph- 
ecy, he saw the promised Elias ; comp. Luke i. 17. — 6 wéAAwv épyecbac] the 
usual predicate.? 

Ver. 15. A request to give due attention to this important statement in 
ver. 14.8 

Vv. 16 ff. After this high testimony respecting the Baptist, we have now 
a painful charge against the men of his time, whom, in fact, neither John nor 
Himself is able to satisfy. In expressive, appropriate, and certainly 
original terms (in answer to Hilgenfeld), He compares the existing genera- 
tion to children reproaching their playfellows for not being inclined to 
chime in either with their merry or their lugubrious strains. Uswally the 
Jews are supposed to be represented by those refractory playmates, so that 
Jesus and John have necessarily to be understood as corresponding to the 
children who play the cheerful music, and who mourn.‘ But (1) the words 
expressly intimate that the children with their music and lamentation 
represented the yeved, to which John and Jesus stand opposed, so that the 
latter must therefore correspond to the érépoce who are reproached by the 


mawia, (2) If the arrangement of the passage is not to be arbitrarily dis. 


also it is always used in a good sense. For language is as if from a looking forward 


aprag., comp. Xen. Anad, iv. 6. 11, vi. 5. 18; 
Herodian, ii. 6. 10, ii. 3. 23. 

1 Wetstein on this passage ; Lightfoot on 
xvii. 10; Schoettgen, p. 148. 

* Bengel: “‘sermo est tanquam e pros- 
pectu testamenti veteris in novum,” ‘‘ The 


out of the Old Testament into the New.” 

3 Comp. xiii. 9; Mark iv. 9; Luke viii. 8; 
Ezek. iii. 27; Hom. JJ. xv. 129. 

4 Fritzsche, Oppenrieder, K6ster in the 
Stud. u. Krit. 1862, p. 346 f. 


CHAP, X1s,18) 19. 22 


turbed, the thrice repeated Aéyovo1v must be held to prove that, since those 
who speak in vv. 18, 19 are Jews, it is to these also that the children corre- 
spond who are introduced as speaking in ver. 16. (8) If we were to suppose 
that Jesus and John were represented by those children, then, according to 
vv. 18 and 19, it would be necessary to reverse the order of the words in 
ver, 17, so as to run thus: é@pyvqoauev iviv . . . nrAgjoapev, etc. Conse- 
quently the ordinary explanation of the illustration is wrong. The correct 
interpretation is this : the radia are the Jews ; the érepor are John and Jesus ; 
first came John, who was far too rigid an ascetic to suit the tastes of the 
free-living Jews (John v. 35); then came Jesus, and He, again, did not 
come up to their ascetic and hierarchical standard, and was too lax, in their 
opinion. The former did not dance to their music ; the latter did not 
respond to their lamentation (similarly de Wette with a slight deviation, 
Ewald, Bleek, Keim). — ravdiore, «.7.2.] The allusion is to children who in 
their play (according to Ewald, it was playing at a riddle) imitate the way 
in which grown-up people give expression to their joy and their sorrow ; 
Rosenmiiller, Morgenl. in loco. —The flute was played at weddings and 
dancings. — éxéyaof_e] beating upon the breast was the ordinary indication 
of grief.'— roi¢ éréporc| the other children present, who are not among the 
number of their playmates. 

Vv. 18, 19. Mare éofiwv uAte rivwv] hyperbolical.? Comp. iii. 4 ; Luke i. 
15 ; Dan. x. 3. In contrast to the liberal principles of Jesus, who ate and 
drank without imposing upon Himself Nazarite abstinences (like John) or 
regular fastings (ix. 14), or without declining (like the Pharisees) to go to 
entertainments provided by those in a different rank of life from His own. — 
Satuoviov éyec] Which, through perverting His judgment, leads Him into 
those ascetic eccentricities ; comp. John x. 20. — d@ayéc] glutton, is a word 
belonging to a very late period.’ — kai édicardOn 7% cogia ard Tov Téxvov aiTic] 
not a continuation of the words of the Jews, in which case édccariby would 
have to be taken ironically (in answer to Bornemann), but the closing obser- 
vation of Jesus in reference to the perverse manner in which His own claims 
and those of John had been treated by the Jews ; and justified (i.e., shown 
to be the trwe wisdom) has been the wisdom (the divine wisdom which has 
been displayed in John and me) on the part of her children, i.e., on the part 
of those who reverence and obey her (Sir. iv. 11), who, through their 
having embraced her and followed her guidance, have proved how unwar- 
ranted are those judgments of the profanwm vulgus ; comp. Luke vii. 29. 
The (actual). confirmation has come to wisdom from those devoted to her.* Those 
disciples of wisdom are the same who in ver. 12 are said {ialevv tiv Baoideiar; 
but the «at which introduces the passage ‘‘cum vi pronuntiandum est, ut 
saepe in sententiis oppositionem continentibus, ubi frustra fuere, qui Ka/rox 


1 Ezek. xx. 43; Nah. ii. 8; Matt. xxiv. 30; 3 See Lobeck, ad Phryn. p. 434; on the 
Luke xviii. 13; Hom. JZ. xviii. 31; Plat. aecent, Lipsius, gramm. Unters. p. 28. 
Phaed. p. 60 A, al. ; Herod. vi. 58; Diod. Sic. 4am0, comp. on Acts il. 22; Hermann, ad 
i. 44; Koster, Erldut. p. 92 f. Soph. El. 65; Kiihner, ad Xen. Anad. vi. 5. 

2 ev “Iwavvov Statta Svompdcttos Kal To2- 18 ; not v7. 


xeta, Euth. Zigabenus. 


228 THE GOSPEL OF MATTHEW. 

requirerent,” ‘‘is to be proclaimed with force, as often in sentences containing 
opposition, where they are to no purpose who would demand kairo.” * This 
view is in the main that of (though in some cases the réxva tH¢ codiac has been 
too much limited by being understood as referring merely to the disciples of 
Jesus) Jerome (‘‘ego, qui sum Dei virtus et sapientia Dei, juste fecisse ab 
apostolis meis filiis comprobatus sum’’), Miinster, Beza, Vatablus, Calovius, 
Hammond, Jansen, Fritzsche, Olshausen, de Wette, Ebrard, Bleek, Lange, 
Hofmann, Keim, Weiss. Yet many, while also retaining the meaning given 
above, take the aorist, though without any warrant from the text, or any ex- 
ample of it in the New Testament, in the sense of cherishing.? Chrysostom, 
Theophylact, and Castalio understand the words as expressing the thought 
that the wisdom manifested in Jesus has nothing to answer for with regard to the 
Jews (similarly Weizsiicker) ; a view to which it may be objected—first, that 
Sixacovcba: axé tTwog cannot be taken in the sense of to be free from the guilt of 
any one (Sik. ard THE duaptiacg Tevdc ; Comp. Sir. xxvi. 29; Rom. vi. 7) ; and 
secondly, that the Jews, unless something in the context should specially sug- 
gest or lead to it, cannot straightway be spoken of as the children of wisdom. 
The latter objection is equally applicable to the explanation of Schneckenbur- 
ger : and so wisdom (which is supposed to mean God's care for His people ; 
comp. also Euth. Zigabenus and Grotius) has been treated cavalierly (has been 
arrogantly condemned) by her own children, which, moreover, is precluded by 
the fact that dicacoicfa: is never used in this sense in the New Testament. 
Oppenrieder, p. 441 f., likewise understands the children of wisdom to refer 
to the Jews, inasmuch, that is, as they were subjected to the discipline of 
divine wisdom. The doings of cogia were demonstrated to be righteous by 
the conduct of the Jews ; that is to say, they had desired, instead of John, 
a divine messenger of a less ascetic character (and him the divine wisdom 
sent them in the person of Christ); while, on the other hand, instead of Christ, 
with His freer manner of life, they desired one more rigorously disposed (and 
this wish the divine wisdom had gratified by giving them the Baptist). So 
far Schneckenburger. But this conduct of the Jews was capricious and wilful, 
and was ill calculated to display the justice of the divine dealings, which it 
could have done only if it had been supposed to proceed from a feeling of real 
moral need, for which, however, in vv. 16-19, Jesus shows Himself by no 
means inclined to give themcredit. Besides, one is ata loss to see, even if 
this view were adopted, how the Jews with their foolish and obstinate behavior 
should come to be called réxva ric codiac. According to Ewald,* Jesus means 
to say that it is just her wrong-headed children (who quarrel with her) that 
do most to justify the divine wisdom by their not knowing, with all their 
wisdom, what they would really like. But this view, again, which necessi- 
tates an antiphrastic interpretation of the réxva r7¢ cogiac, finds no support in 


1 Stallbaum, ad Plat. Apol. p.29B. Such 
ause of xac occurs*with special frequency 
in John. Wolf, ad Lept. p. 238; Hartung, 
Partikell. 1. p. 147. 

2See Ktihner, II. 1, p. 189; Fritzsche, ad 
fom. I. p. 305, as Kuinoel (‘‘ sapientia non 


nisi a sapientiae cultoribus et amicis pro- 

batur et laudatur, reliqui homines eam ri- 

dent,” ete., ‘Wisdom is approved and 

praised only bythe cultivators and friends of 

wisdom, the rest of men laugh at it,” etc. 
3 Gesch. Chr. p. 482. 


CHAP. XI., 20-25. 229 


the text, besides involving accessory thoughts to which there is no allusion. 
Similarly Calvin even understood the words to refer to the Jews who thought 
themselves so wise ; before whom, however, wisdom is supposed to assert her 
dignity and authority through the medium of her genuine children, 

Vv. 20 ff. Then He began, and so on (jpEaro). Luke introduces this up- 
braiding of the cities at a later stage—that is, on the occasion when the in- 
structions were addressed to the Seventy (x. 18-15), for which he is assigned 
the preference by Schleiermacher, Schneckenburger, Holtzmann ; while de 
Wette and Keim are justified in going against Luke, who generally uses 
considerable freedom as to the connection in which he introduces the sayings 
which in this chapter are all connected with the same subject.—The Gospels 
make no further mention of the miracles in Cherazin and Lethsaida (not far 
from Capernaum),' John xx. 380. — év Tipy x. %d., x.7.2.] Even these 
wicked heathen cities would have been brought to amendment long ago with 
deep sorrow for their sins. The penitent sorrow is represented by év caxk. x. 
oxodo, aform of mourning in popular use among the Jews (comp. on vi. 16). 
— tv odkky] i.e.,in the dark, sack-shaped mourning attire, made of coarse 
cloth, and drawn over the naked body ; Gesenius, Thes. II. p. 1836. — Ver. 
22. Av] however, in thesense of ceterum, that is, to add nothing more, / tell you. 
Frequently used in this way by classical writers, and comp. note on Eph. v. 
33. — Ver. 23. And thou, Capernaum, who hast been exalted to heaven, i.e., raised 
to the highest distinction through my dwelling and laboring within thee, 
wilt be brought down to Hades, namely, on the day of judgment, to undergo 
punishment in Gehenna ; see ver. 24. Grotius, Kuinoel, Fritzsche interpret 
the eraltation of Capernaum as referring to its prosperity, derived from trade, 
the fisheries, and so on. But this is not in keeping with the connection as 
indicated by év aig éyévovto ai TAsiotas Suvdperc abrov in ver. 20.—Still more 
humiliating than the comparison with Tyre and Sidon, is that with Sodom ; 
because the responsibility was greatest in the case of Capernaum — éuewwav ay] 
This av, here and in ver. 21, is simply according to rule, because the ante- 
cedent clauses contain a swmtio ficta.2-—Ver. 24. Comp. on x. 15. —ipiv... 
coi]? 7d pév duiv mpd¢g Tove roditag THe TOAEwC ékeivnc eipytat’ TO JE Col TPG 
rip roa, ‘the to you is addressed to the inhabitants of that city ; the to 
thee is spoken to the city.” The iyiv, that is, does not refer to the audi- 
ence (see ver. 22).—Observe further in vy. 21-24, first, how the passage as- 
sumes the form of a weighty climaa ; and then, secondly, the solemn paral- 
lelism of the antecedent clauses in vv. 21, 23, and of the threatened punish- 
ments in vv. 22, 24. 

Ver. 25. ’Axoxp. means, like 73}!, to take up speech, and that in connection 
with some given occasion, to which what is said is understood to refer by 
way of rejoinder. Comp. xxii. 1, xxviii. 5 ; John ii. 18, v.17, al. How- 
ever, the occasion in this instance is not stated. According to Luke x. 21 
(Strauss, Ebrard, Bleek, Holtzmann), it was the return of the Seventy, of 
whom, however, there is no mention in Matthew. Ewald, Weissenborn, 


1 Robinson, newere Forsch. p. 457 ff. 3 Euth. Zigabenus. 
2 Ellendt. Lex. Soph. I. p. 488. 


230 THE GOSPEL OF MATTHEW. 


and older expositors find it in the return of the apostles. See Mark vi. 12, 
30; Luke ix. 6,10. This is the most probable view. Luke has transferred 
the historical connection of the prayer to the account of the Seventy, which 
is peculiar to that evangelist ; while in xii. 1, Matthew assumes that the; 
Twelve have already returned. The want of precision in Matthew’s account, | 
which in x. 5 expressly records the sending out of the Twelve, but says noth-| 
ing of their return, is, of course, a defect in his narrative ; but for this rea- ) 
son we should hesitate all the more to regard it as an evidence that we have, 
here only an interpolation (Hilgenfeld) of this ‘‘pearl of the sayings of 
Jesus” (Keim), which is one of the purest and most genuine, one of Johan-\ 
nean splendor (John viii. 19, x. 15, xiv. 9, xvi. 15). — For éFouodoy. with | 
dative, meaning to praise, comp. on Rom. xiv. 11 ; Sir. li. 1. —ravra] what? 
the imperfect narrative does not say what things, for it introduces this 
thanksgiving from the collection of our Lord’s sayings, without hinting why 
it does so. But from the contents of the prayer, as well as from its sup- 
posed occasion,—viz., the return of the Twelve with their cheering report,— 
it may be inferred that Jesus is alluding to matters connected with the Messianie 
kingdom which He had communicated to the disciples (xiii. 11), matters in the 
proclaiming of which they had been laboring, and at the same time been 
exercising the miraculous powers conferred upon them. — The cogoi and 
ovveroi are the wise and intelligent generally (1 Cor. i. 19, iii. 10), but used 
with special reference to the scribes and Pharisees, who, according to their 
own opinion and that of the people (John ix. 40), were pre-eminently so. 
The novices (OSD), the disciples, who are unversed in the scholastic wisdom 
of the Jews. Comp. on this subject, 1 Cor. i. 26 ff. Yet on this occasion 
we must not suppose the reference to be to the simple and unsophisticated 
masses (Keim), which is not in keeping with ver. 27, nor with the idea of 
arokdAvyic (comp. Xvi. 17) generally, as found in this connection ; the con- 
trast applies to two classes of teachers, the one wise and prudent, indepen- 
dently of divine revelation, the others mere novices in point of learning, but 
yet recipients of that revelation.—Observe, further, how the subject of 
thanksgiving does not lie merely in azexdAvy. aita vyriow, but in the two,— 
the dréxpupac, etc., and the arexdarpac, being inseparably combined. Both 
together are the two sides of the one method of proceeding on the part of 
His all-ruling Father, of the necessity of which Christ was well aware (John 
1x. 39): 

Ver. 26. Solution of the contradiction regarded as a confirmation of the 
ground for thanksgiving. Understand éEonohoyovjat oot before oz: (not 
because, but that, as in ver. 25). — éuxpocbév cov] belongs to eidoxia : that thus 
(and not otherwise) was done (was accomplished, comp. vi. 10) what is well- 
pleasing before Thee, in Thy sight ; what is to Thee an object pleasing to 
look upon. Comp. xvii. 14 ; Heb. xiii. 21. For eidoxia, comp. iii. 17 ; 
Luke ii. 14. 

Ver. 27. Here the prayer ends, and He turns to address the multitude 
(ver. 28),—but, according to Luke x. 22, it is His disciples, —still full of 
the great thought of the prayer, under a profound feeling of His peculiar 
fellowship with God. — ravra wor raped. | It is quite as unwarrantable to limit 


CHAP. XI., 28~30. 201 


wdvra in any way whatever, as it is to take rapedé6y as referring to the reve- 
lation of the doctrine (Grotius, Kuinoel, and others), or to the representation 
of the highest spiritual truths (Keim), which Christ is supposed to have been 
appointed to communicate to mankind. It is not even to be restricted to 
all human souls (Gess). What Jesus indicates and has in view, is the full 
power with which, in sending Him forth, the Father is understood to haye 
invested the Son, a power to dispose of everything so as to promote the object 
for which He came.! Jcsus speaks thus in the consciousness of the univer- 
\ sal authority (xxviii. 18; Heb. ii. 8) conferred upon Him, from which 

nothing is excluded (John xiii. 3, xvi. 15); for He means to say, that 

between Him and the Father there exists such a relation that no one knows 
| the Son, and so on.? On both thoughts Christ founds the invitation in ver. 

28. On the relation of the words rdvra yor raped. to xxviii. 18, see note on 

that passage. — érvywvécxer] means more than the simple verb, viz., an adequate 

and full knowledge, which de Wette wrongly denies (see ovdé tov rarépa TiC 
Comp. on 1 Cor. xiii. 12. Nothing is to be inferred from this 
passage as to the supernatural origin of Jesus (in answer to Beyschlag, 
Christol. p. 60). The éxvywéckerv tov vidv applies to His whole nature and 
thinking and acting, not merely to His moral constitution, a limitation (in 
answer to Weiss) which, if necessary, would have been shown to be so in 
the context by means of the second correlative clause of the verse. — @ édv 
Bovd. 6 vide axoxad.] bears the impress of superhuman consciousness. Accord- 
ing to the context, we have simply to regard riv zarépa as the object of 
For aroxad. with a personal object, comp. Gal. i. 16. 

Ver. 28. Tdvrec] gratia wniversalis. ‘‘In this all thou oughtest to include 
thyself as well, and not suppose that thou dost not belong to the number ; 
thou shouldst not seek for another register of God,” Melanchthon. — kor. xai 
medopt.| through the legal and Pharisaic ordinances under which the man is 
evhausted and weighed down as with a heavy burden, without getting rid of the 
painful consciousness of sin, xxiii. 4. Comp. Acts xv. 10, xiii. 39. — kayo] 
emphatic : and I, what your teachers and guides cannot do. — avaraiow] I 
will procure you rest, i.€., ievbepbow Kai Tod ToLobTov Kérov Kai Tov ToLObTOV Bapov¢ 
(Euth. Zigabenus), so as to secure the true peace of your souls, John xiv. 27, 
xvi. 33; Rom. v. 1. Ver. 29 tells in what way. 

Vv. 29, 30. To regard ¢vyé¢ (Olshausen, Calvin) as referring to the cross, 


> LA 
ériywvooket). 


aroxan. 


is at variance with the context. 


1 Bengel: “nihil sibi reservavit pater.” 

2JIn this first clause, to supply the 
thought, from the first—viz., ‘‘ and to whom 
the Father is willing to reveal it’’ (de Wette, 
following the older expositors)—is arbi- 
trary, for Jesus has just said: mavra poe 
mapedo0n, etc. To whomsoever the Son re- 
veals the knowledge of the Father, to 
him He thereby reveals the knowledge of 
the Son likewise.—Hilgenfeld adopts the 
Marcionite reading: ovéeis €yvw Tov ratépa et 
#4} © vlbs, Kal TOY VidY El “Ly O TaTHP Kal @ av O 
vids amoxadvwn, ‘‘No man knew the Fa- 


Jesus has in view His guidance and disci- 


ther but the Son, and no man knew the 
Son but the Father and he to whomsoever 
the Son should reveal Him.” This reading, 
being that of the Clementines, Justin, Mar- 
cion, has earlier testimony in its favor than 
that of the Received text, which first ap- 
pears in Irenaeus in a duly authenticated 
form; Irenaeus, i. 20. 3, ascribes it to the 
Marcosians, though he elsewhere adopts it 
himself. However, an examination of the 
authorities leads to the conclusion (see 
Tischendorf) that it must be eacluded from 
the text. Comp. also note on Luke x. 21. 


paay THE GOSPEL OF MATTHEW. 


pline, to which they are to subject themselves through faith in Him. Comp. 
Sir. li. 26, and the very common Rabbinical use of 7\Y in Schoettgen, p. 
115 ff. — érc] not that, but because ; motive for pwabere az’ éuoi (i.e., learn in 
me, learn from me,* with which words Jesus presents Himself as their moral 
example, in contrast to the character of the teachers of the law and the 
Pharisees, who, if they affected to be meek and humble, were, as a rule, not 
so at heart (rij xapd. belongs to beth words), but only in appearance, while in 
reality they were tyrannical and proud. Comp. 2 Cor. x. 1..—x«. ebpgoere, 
x.T.2.] Jer. vi. 16.— ypyoréc] may mean good and wholesome,’ or suave 
(Vulg.), gentle and agreeable. The latter suits the figure and the parallel- 
ism. — 10 gopriov pov] the burden which I impose (comp. on Gal. vi. 5). — éAa- 
gpév] for it is the discipline and duty of love, through which faith manifests 
its practical results, 1 John v. 8. ‘‘ Omnia levia sunt caritati” (Augustine), 
notwithstanding the strait gate and the narrow way, and the cross that is 
to be borne. 


1 Buttmann, newt. Gr. p. 279 [E. T. 324]. 
2 Comp. matédevars xpynoty, Plat. Rep. p. 424 A. 


CHAP. XII. 230 


CHAPTER XII. 


Ver. 3. éxeivace] Elz. and Fritzsche insert airéc, against decisive testimony. 
From Mark ii. 25 ; Luke vi. 3. — Ver. 4. é¢ayev] Tisch. 8: é¢ayov, only accord- 
ing toB &. Altered to suit what follows. — otc] Lach. Tisch. : 6, after B D 
13, 124, Cant. Ver. Harl.* Correctly ; the Received text is a correction in ac- 
cordance with Mark and Luke. — Ver. 6.— jeiSov] BDEGKMSUVIT, 
Curss. and Fathers; pei{ov. So Fritzsche, Scholz, Lachm. Tisch. Authority 
and exegesis favor the neuter, by way of explaining which the masculine 
would readily suggest itself. — Ver. 8. Before roi cafBarov Elz. inserts kai, 
which has been deleted in accordance with decisive testimony. From Mark 
and Luke. — Ver. 10. #v 77] is certainly wanting in BC 8, while Vulg. and 
Codd. of the It. Copt. leave it doubtful whether they did not read simple jy. 
"Hy rv is deleted by Lachm. and Tisch. Correctly. The brevity of Matthew's 
statement was supplemented from Mark iii. 1, and hence éxei came to be in- 
serted between fv and t7v (by others at a different place). — Ver. 11. Lachm., 
following inadequate testimony, reads éyeipec instead of éyepei. An error on 
the part of the transcriber. — Ver. 14. The following arrangement, éfeA0dvte¢ 
62 of Gap. cum. é2. Kat. aitov (BCD A 8, Curss. Syr. Copt. It. Vulg. Eus. 
Chrys. Fritzsche, Gersd. Lachm. Tisch.), is to be preferred to that of the 
Received text (oi 6. &. c. é4. x, a, é&.), a8 being simpler and more in keeping with 
Matthew’s style. — Ver. 15. éyAo.] omitted in B &, Vulg. It. Eus., deleted by 
Lachm. and Tisch. Homoeoteleuton. — Ver, 17. With Lachm. and Tisch. we 
ought to adopt iva instead of ézwc, in accordance with BC D &,.1, 33, Or. 
Eus. ; dtwe was introduced for sake of variety. —Ver, 18. ei¢ 6y] Lachm. and 
Tisch. 8 (see note of the latter): év, after B 8* and several Curss. On inad- 
equate testimony, for ei¢ would be readily dropped out, from a mechanical ef- 
fort to conform the construction to 6v #périca; év @ in D is a gloss. — Ver. 21. 
t@ évouare] Elz. Fritzsche : év r@ dvdu., against decisive testimony. év is an in- 
terpolation, as is also éxi in Eus. and several Curss. — Ver. 22. rov rugAdv Kad 
koo6v] Lachm. and Tisch. have merely rv ka¢dv (B D &, Copt. Syres Cant. 
Corb. 1, Germ.1). But Aa%eiv coming first in what follows gave rise partly to 
the omission of rv¢Aév, partly to the inverted arrangement: Kwgdv Kal Tupddv 
(LX A, Curss, Syr. Arm), —Ver 28. The order év rvevy. Geov éyo, as against 
that of the Received text, éyd év mveviu., is supported by decisive testimony 
(less adequately the arrangement of Lachm. and Tisch. : «pital éoovtar duov, In 
ver, 27). — Ver. 29. In accordance with B C* X, Curss., Lachm. and Tisch. have 
dprdcac instead of diaprdcer, The reading of the Received text is adopted 
from Mark. In what follows Lachm. has dprdceu instead of dcaprace: ; So also 
Tisch. 7, but according to testimony that is far too inadequate. Tisch. 8, fol- 
lowing D GK II 8, Curss., reads dvapréoy. But still the evidence in favor 
of d.aprdcet remaing so strong, that there is but the more reason to look upon 
Svaprdoy as a supposed grammatical correction. — Ver. 31. Tisch. 8, following 
Lachm., has indeed also deleted the second roic¢ avOpdéroe (after B &, Curss. 


234 THE GOSPEL OF MATTHEW. 


Verss. and a few Fathers); itis, however, to be preserved as a solemn yet 
superfluous repetition. — Ver. 35. Elz., against decisive testimony, inserts rij¢ 
kapdiac after the first @jcoavpov. Agloss. But with Tisch. 8, and on the strength 
of sufficient testimony, rd before aya$d is to be maintained, in opposition to 
Griesb. Lachm. Tisch. 7. The article came to be omitted from a desire to con- 
form to the second clause. — Ver. 36. The reading AaAjoovow, adopted by 
Tisch, (B C &), is to be traced to the futures which follow. — Ver. 38. With 
Lachm. and Tisch. air@ should be inserted after drexpif., in accordance with 
BCD LM, Curss. and most Verss, and Chrys. Perhaps it was omitted 
from being considered unnecessary. — kai apic.] is deleted by Lachm. on too 
inadequate testimony. —Ver. 44. The arrangement: ei¢ 7. oik. gm. émotp. 
(Lachm, Tisch.), as opposed to that of the Received text (érvorp. é. 7. 6. 1), 
finds testimony sufficiently strong in BD Z &. Comp. Luke. — é496v] DFG 
X. IT, Curss.: é40dév. So Fritzsche and Tisch. Correctly ; the reading of the 
Received text is here and in Luke xi, 25 a grammatical correction. — Ver. 46. 
dé] omitted in B 8, Curss. Vulg. It. Deleted by Lachm. and Tisch. 8. But 
how easily may it have been omitted at the beginning of the new section (one 
reading even begins with airov)!— Ver. 48. eizovte] Fritzsche, Lachm. Tisch. : 
Zéyovrt, after BD Z I 8, Curss. Correctly. The former has crept in mechan- 
ically, in conformity with ver. 47. 


Ver. 1. ff. Comp. Mark ii. 23 ff.; Luke vi. 1 ff. Any one was allowed to 
pluck? ears of corn in another man’s field till he was satisfied. Deut. xxiii. 
25. It is customary and allowable even at the present day.* But according 
to Ex. xvi. 22 ff., it might seem as if it were unlawful on the Sabbath, and 
it appears from tradition’ that it was actually so regarded. That the disci- 
ples did not hold themselves bound by this view, is an evidence of their 
more liberal spirit. — jp£avro] After this plucking had begun, there came the 
remonstrance on the part of the Pharisees, ver. 2.— Luke, in accordance 
with the historical arrangement which he observes, places this incident some- 
what earlier ; Mark and Luke introduce it after the question about fasting. 
Both of them, however, mention only the first of the two proof-texts quoted 
by Jesus. Matthew, following a tradition that is more original as far as 
this matter is concerned, supplements the account in Mark, from whom, 
however, he essentially differs in regard to the object in plucking the corn.*® 

Vv. 3, 4. ’Avéyvore] 1 Sam. xxi. — The spurious airé¢ is unnecessary; Kai 
ol per’ abrov is connected with ri éroincev Aaveid.° -—olkog tov Oecd] in this in- 
stance the tabernacle, which was then at Nob. Comp. Ex. xxiii. 19. For the 
twelve pieces of shew-bread, on this occasion called dpro: ri¢ rpobécewe, 7.€., 
ND VWI Dm, loaves of the pile (1 Chron. xxiii. 29 ; Ex. xl. 23), elsewhere 
named dpro: tov rpocdrov, DID On), loaves of the presence (of God), 1 Sam. 
xxi. 7, which, as a meat-offering, stood in the holy place, arranged in two 
rows upon a golden table, and were renewed every Sabbath, those of the 


1 7iAAev, Blomfield, ad Aesch. Pers. Gloss. 4 Comp. Weizsicker, p. 390. 
214. 5 See on Mark, and Holtzmann, p. 73. 
2 Robinson, II. p. 419. ® Comp. Thue. i. 47. 2: eAeye 5€ o Zrvdwv 


3 Schabb. c. 8; Lightfoot and Schoettgen kai ol wet avrov, and Poppo’s note. 
on this passage. 


CHAP. XII., 5-8. 235 


previous week being given to the priests, see Lev. xxiv. 5 ff.1— ei uf] only 
appears to stand for aA/d, and retains its usual meaning of nisi. The lan- 
guage, however, assumes the tone of absolute negation : which it was not 
lawful for Him to eat, nor for those who were with Him, not lawful except 
Jor the priests alone. The neuter 6 (see the critical remarks) indicates the 
category : what, i.e., which kind of food. 

Ver. 5. ’Avéyvore] Num. xxviii. 9.— BeBydovor] that is, if one were con- 
sistently to judge according to your precepts, which forbid every sort of 
work on the Sabbath as being a desecration of that day.* 

Ver. 6. As in ver. 3f. Jesus had reasoned a majori (from the fact of David, 
when hungry, being allowed to eat the shew-bread) ad minus (to the fact of 
the hungry disciples being allowed to pluck the corn on the Sabbath), so in 
ver. 5 He reasons a minori (viz., from the temple, where the Sabbath is sub- 
ordinated to the sacrificial arrangements) ad majus, viz., to His own authority, 
which transcends the sanctity of the temple, and from acting under which 
the disciples might well be the less disposed to be bound to keep the Sab- 
bath. The key to this argument is to be found in ver. 6, which contains 
the minor proposition of the conclusion : what is allowable in case of the 
servants of the temple, namely, to work on the Sabbath, must be conceded 
to the servants of Him whois greater than the temple ; Iam greater than 
the temple ; therefore, and so on. —In all the elevation and truth of His 
self-consciousness Jesus points with tov iepod pweifév éorw dde to His own person 
and character as surpassing the temple in sanctity and greatness ; not to the 
Messianic work (Fritzsche, de Wette, Baumgarten-Crusius), with which the 
plucking of the corn had nothing to do ; nor, again, to the interests of the 
disciples ! (Paulus, Kuinoel); nor, finally, to the éAeo¢ in ver. 7 (Baur), The 
neuter weilov, a greater thing, is more weighty than the masculine. Comp. 
xi, 9. — dde] demonstrative, as in vv. 41, 42. Notice how sublimely great 
is the consciousness that God is dwelling in Him in a higher sense than in 
the temple ; comp. note on John ii. 19. 

Ver. 7. After this defence of His disciples, He shows the Pharisees that 
in judging them as they had done they were animated by a perverse disposi- 
tion. He shows how they were destitute of the compassionate love which 
God requires in Hos. vi. 6, while their thoughts were exclusively directed 
to sacrifice and ceremonial religion generally. From want of éAcoc, which 
would have disposed them to regard the conduct of the hungry ones in a 
totally different light, they, 7.e., those ceremonialists, had condemned the 
disciples. See, besides, note on ix. 13. 

Ver. 8. Tap] rove avariovc, I say, for, and so on.® The authority of the 
Messiah (ander which His disciples have acted) is superior to the law of the 


1 Lund, Jid. Heiligth., ed. Wolf, p. 134 ff.; + 3% For BeBnA., profanant, comp. Acts xxiv. 
Ewald, Alterth. pp. 37, 153; Keil, Arch. I. p. 6, and see Schleusner, 7/es. I. p. 558. 


91. 4 Dissen, ad Dem. de cor. p. 396. 
2See Matthiae, p. 987; Kiihner, II. 1, p. 5 “ Majestate Christi nititur discipnlorum 
55. Comp. note on Gal. i. 7, ii. 16; Luke iv, innocentia et libertas,’’ ‘‘The innocence 


26 f.; Dindorf in Steph. Thes. III. p. 190 C ; and freedom of the disciples rest upon the 
Fritzsche, ad Rom. II. p. 195. majesty of Christ,’ Bengel. 


236 THE GOSPEL OF MATTHEW. 


Sabbath ; the latter is subject to His disposal, and must yield to His will.’ 
Others (Grotius, Kuinoel) interpret thus : Man may set aside the laws regard- 
ing the Sabbath, whenever it is for his advantage to do so. In opposition to 
the regular use of 6 vide 7. avOp., the argument is different in Mark i. 27. 

Vv. 9 ff. Comp. Mark iii. 1 ff.; Luke vi. 6 ff. — Kai peraBdc éxeifev, x.7.A.] 
therefore on the same Sabbath day. Different from Luke, who has épv érép@ 
oaBBarw, to which further division of time Mark likewise fails to make any 
reference whatever. —avrov| the Pharisees, whom He had just sent away. 
It is impossible to say where the synagogue was to which those Pharisees 
belonged. But to take airéy without any definite reference, as in xi. 1 (‘ of 
the people of the place,” de Wette, Bleek), is precluded by érypéryoav, etc., of 
which the Pharisees mentioned in ver. 14 are to be regarded as the subject. 

Ver. 10. The nature of the affection of the withered hand, in which there 
was a defective circulation (1 Kings xiii. 4 ; Zech. xi. 17 ; John v. 3), can- 
not be further defined. It is certain, however, that what was wrong was 
not merely a deficiency in the power of moving the hand, in which case the 
cure would be sufficiently explained by our Lord’s acting upon the will and 
the muscular force (Keim).—The traditions forbade healing on the Sabbath, 
except in cases whére life was in danger. Wetstein and Schoettgen on this 
passage. — ei] in the New Testament? is so applied, in opposition to classical 
usage,* that it directly introduces the words containing the question.* 
However, in the order of ideas in the mind of the questioner is to be found 
the logical connection, which has occasioned and which will explain the 
indirectly interrogative use of ei (I would like to know, or some such expres- 
sion), just as we Germans are also in the habit of asking at once : 0b das er- 
laubt ist? The character of the questions introduced by ¢i is that of uncer- 
tainty and hesitation,® which in this instance is quite in keeping with the 
tempting which the questioners had in view. Fritzsche’s purely indirect 
interpretation (‘‘interrogarunt eum hoc modo, an liceret,” etc.) is precluded 
by Aéyovrec, and the passages where the question is preceded by some form 
of address such as xipie in Acts i. 6; Luke xxii. 49. — iva katyyop. abrov] 
before the local court (xpicic, v. 21) in the town, and that on the charge of 
teaching to violate the law of the Sabbath. 

Ver. 11. The construction, like that of vii. 9, is a case of anacoluthon.— 
The futures indicate the supposed possible case ; see Kiihner, I. 1, p. 147: 
what man may there be from among you, and so on. — rpéBarov év] one, which 
on that account is all the dearer to him. — kai éav éuréon, x.t.A.] There must 
have been no doubt as to whether such a thing was allowable, for Jesus 
argues ex concesso. The Talmud (Gemara) contains no such concession, but 
answers the question partly in a negative way, and partly by making casu- 
istical stipulations,® — kpatjoe: ard x. éyepei] descriptive. He lays hold of 


1 Bertholdt, Christol. p. 162 f. For the 4 Comp. xix. 3; Luke xiii. 22, xxii. 49; 
idea, comp. John vy. 18; Holtzmann, p. 458. Actsi. 6; occurring also in the LXX., notin 
2 Winer, p. 474 [E. T. 639]; Buttmann, the Apocrypha. 
neut. Gr. p. 214 [E. T. 249]. 5 Hartung, 1. 1; Kihner, II. 2, p. 1082. 
3See Hartung, Partikell. Il. p. 202 f.; 6 See the passages in Othonis, Lew Rabb. 


Klotz, ad Devar. pp. 508, 511. p. 527; Wetstein, and Buxtorf, Synag. c. 16. 


CHAP. XIt., 12—1'7. 237 


the sheep that has fallen into a ditch (3é@vvov, Xen, Oec. xix. 8, not exclu- 
sively a well, but any kind of hole, like é4poc), and, lifting out the animal 
lying bruised in the pit, he sets it upon its feet. 

Ver. 12. Odv] Inference founded on the value which, according to ver. 11, 
is no doubt set upon an animal in such circumstances, notwithstanding the 
laws of Sabbath observance : Of how much greater consequence, then, is aman 
than a sheep? The answer is already involved in the question itself (és of far 
more consequence, and so on) ; but the final conclusion is: therefore it is allow- 
able to do what is right on the Sabbath. By means of the general expression 
Kaaac roeiv, Which does not mean to be beneficent,’ the beparebev is ranked 
under the category of duty, and the moral absurdity of the question in ver. 
10 is thereby exposed. So, by this adroit handling of the argument, the 
inference of Jesus is secured against all contradiction ; de Wette’s objection, 
to the effect that it might have been asked whether the healing did not 
admit of delay, is founded on a misunderstanding of the cadée¢ roueiv. This 
latter is the moral rule by which resting or working on the Sabbath is to be 
determined, 

Vv. 13, 14. ’Arexateor.] just as He was stretching it out, and at the bid- 
ding of Jesus.? — byij¢] result of the arexateot.* Mark’s version of the inci- 
dent is more animated, fresher, and more original (Keim’s opinion is differ- 
ent), and likewise free from the amplification contained in what is said about 
the animal falling into the well. This saying is introduced by Luke in 
another form, and in connection with a different incident (Luke xiv. 5), 
which, however, would not justify us in holding, with Strauss, that the 
different narratives are only differént settings for the saying in question, 
while supposing at the same time that there is even an allusion here to 1 
Kings xiii. 4, 6. According to the Hvang. s. Hebr.,* the man with the 
withered hand was a mason, who begged to be healed, that he might not be 
under the necessity of begging. —é£eA@évrec] from the synagogue, ver. 9. 
—ovuBova. éa3. kat. ait., druc| they devised measures for the purpose of crush- 
ing Him (see on xxii. 15) ; the opposition to Him had now assumed this very 
decided character. 

Ver. 15 ff. Vv. 17-21 are peculiar to Matthew. — airod¢ ravrac] all the 
sick who were among the multitudes. Indefinite expression. On the con- 
densed style of Matthew, 15 f., comp. Mark iii. 7 ff. ; Luke vi. 17 ff. — 
Ver. 16. He gave them strict injunctions, in order that, and so on (xvi. 20, 
xx. 31) ; for He did not wish, by creating too great a sensation, to provoke 
His enemies to proceed to extremities before the time. Comp. on viii. 4. 
—Ver. 17. This ézeriu. aitoic was designed, in accordance with the divine 
order in history, to fulfil the prophecy that the Messiah was to act without 
anything like ostentatious display in His proceedings. On the silent 
majesty of Jesus, comp. Dorner, Jesu siindlose Volikommenh. p. 28 ff. 


1Kuinoel, de Wette, Bleek, but recte 3 See Winer, pp. 491, 580 [E. T. 663, 779] ; 
agere (Acts x. 33; 1 Cor. vii. 88 f. ; Phil. iv. Liibeker, grammat. Stud. p. 33 f.; Pflugk, 
14; Jas. ii. 8, 19; 2 Pet. i. 19; 3 John 6). ad Hec. 690. 

2 For the double augment, see Winer, p. 4 Hilgenfeld, V. 7. extra can. IV. 16, 28. 


69 f. [E. T. 84]. 


238 THE GOSPEL OF MATTHEW. 

Ver. 18. Isa. xl. 1 ff., a very free rendering of the original Hebrew text, 
yet not without some reminiscences of the LXX. For the 1) 72}, which 
the LXX. (‘Iax®Z 6 rai¢c wov) and modern expositors interpret as applying to 
Israel as a nation, or the ideal Israel of the prophets.’ Matthew under- 
stands it as referring to the Messiah. Similarly the Chaldee paraphrasts 
and Kimchi, in which they are justified by the Messianic idea, as fulfilled 
in Christ, running through the whole passage.* — ei¢ bv] in regard to whom. 
Direction of the approbation. Comp. 2 Pet. i.17. The qorists, as in iil. 
17. —Ofow rd rveipa] t.e., I will make Him the possessor and the bearer of 
my Holy Spirit, by whose power He is to work, Isa. xi. 2, lxi. 1; Matt. 
iii. 16; Acts iv. 27.—xpiow] not: quod fieri par est (Fritzsche) ; not: 
justice and righteousness (Bleek) ; the good cause (Schegg) ; or the cause of 
God (Baumgarten-Crusius) ; not : recta cultus divini ratio (Gerhard) ; nor : 
doctrina divina (Kuinoel),—which interpretations have been given in view 
of the 0DW1 of the original (where it denotes the right, i.e., what is right 
and matter of duty in the true theocracy.? But in the New Testament 
kpiocc has no other meaning but that of jinal sentence, judgment (also in xxiii. 
23) ; and this, in fact, is the sense in which the Hebrew was wnderstood by 
the LXX. Matthew’s Greek expression is doubtless to be understood no less 
in the sense of a judicial sentence, t.e., the Messianic judgment, for which the 
Messiah is preparing the way through His whole ministry, and which is to 
be consummated at the last day. —roic é@veow] not : the nations, generally, 
but the heathen. Similarly also in ver. 21. The point of fulfilment in the 
prediction here quoted lies simply in its serving to describe, as it does in 
ver. 19 f., the unostentatious, meek, and gentle nature of Christ’s ministry 
(ver. 16), so that it is unnecessary to look to what precedes in order to find 
something corresponding to roic é#veor (Some finding it in the multitudes that 
followed Jesus). Jesus did not preach to the heathen till He did it through 
the apostles, Eph. ii. 17, a matter altogether beyond the scope of the pres- 
ent passage. It should be observed generally, and especially in the case of 
somewhat lengthened quotations from the Old Testament, that it is not in- 
tended that every detail is to find its corresponding fulfilment, but that 
such fulfilment is to be looked for only in connection with that which the 
connection shows to be the main subject under consideration. 

Vv. 19, 20. Contrast to the conduct of the Jewish teachers. He will not 
wrangle nor cry,* and so on.—The bruised reed and smoking wick represent 
those who are. spiritually miserable and helpless (xi. 5), whom Christ does 
not reduce to utter hopelessness and despair, but (xi. 28), to whom He rather 
gives comfort, and whose moral life He revives and strengthens. And see- 
ing that ver. 17 refers to ver. 16, they cannot be taken to represent the 
sick, whom Jesus heals (Hengstenberg). For those figures, comp. Isa. 


1 See, besides, the commentaries on 2 See Acts ili. 13, 26, iv. 27, 30; Hengsten- 


Isaiah ; Drechsler and Delitzsch in Rudel- 
bach’s Zeitschr. 1852, 2, p. 258 ff.; Tholuck, 
d. Propheten u. ihre Weissag. p. 158 ff. ; 
Kleinert in the Stud. wu. Krit. 1862, p. 699 ff.; 
F. Philippiin the Mecklenbd, Zeitschr, 1864, 5, 
and 6. 


berg, Christol. II. p. 216 ff., compared with 
Kleinert, /.c. 

3 Comp. Ewald on Isaiah, /.c. ; Hengsten- 
berg, p 233; and see in general, Gesenius, 
Thes. Ill. p. 1464. ; 

4 Lobeck, ad Phryn. p. 337. 


CHAP. XII., 21-23. 239 


xxxvi. 6, lviii. 6, xliii. 17.—éwe dv éxBddy, x.7.2.] until He shall have led 
forth to victory the judgment announced by Him, 7.e., until He shall have 
finally accomplished it at the last day. For with this holding of the assize 
is associated the subjection to it of every hostile power. The final holding 
of it is the victory of the judgment. —In éxBadn, forced out, is implied the 
idea of violent effort, overcoming the resistance offered. The words, however, 
do not correspond to the DIVD WYN NY, Isa. xlii. 3, but to the DWT 
BAW YIN83, ver. 4, as is evident from éwc, and from the words kai ré dvénare, 
ete., which follow. But this is a very free quotation made from memory, 
with which, however, the expression in ver. 3 (8°31) is at the same time 
blended. 

Ver. 21. T6 dvéuate aizov|] In Hebrew, inn ; LXX., éxi ré ovéu. avtov. 
Matthew and the LXX. had a different reading before them (107). This 
is the only passage in the New Testament in which éA7rifo is used with the 
dative (elsewhere and in the LXX. with é, eic, or éxé) ; it is proved, how- 
ever, to be good Greek from the fact of its occurring in Thue. iii. 97. 2, 
and it is meant to indicate the object on which, as its cause, the hope (of 
salvation) is resting. On the ground of His name, i.e., on account’ of that 
which the name Messiah imports, the Gentiles will cherish hope. 

Ver. 22. In Luke (xi. 14 ff.) this incident comes in at a later stage, while 
he reports less of what was spoken on the occasion, and arranges it to some 
extent in a different, though not the original, order ; Mark iii. 22 ff., who 
omits the incident in question, introduces the discourse which follows in a 
peculiar connection of his own.—The resemblance of the narrative to that 
contained in ix. 32 is not due to a mixing together of different incidents,— 
viz., the healing of the blind man on the one hand, and of the man who was 
dumb on the other, ix. 27, 832 (Schneckenburger, Hilgenfeld),—nor to the 
way in which incidents often assume a twofold form in the course of tra- 
dition (Strauss, de Wette, Keim), but is founded upon two different events : 
the former demoniac was dumb, the present one is blind as well,—a circum- 
stance, however, which is not recorded by Luke, who follows a less accu- 
rate version. The term Beelzebul, used in this connection as in ix. 34, is 
one, however, which may have been found often enough upon the lips of 
the Pharisees. Its recurrence can no more prove that a later hand has been 
at work (Baur, Hilgenfeld), than the cireumstance that we find ourselves 
back again into the heart of the contest, although from ver. 14 it seemed to 
have reached its utmost extremity ; for the measures which in ver. 14 the 
Pharisees are said to have taken, have just led to further and no less bitter 
hostility, a hostility in keeping with the spirit of the purpose they have in 
view. — 2aA. x. BAéx.] the thing as it actually takes place. Casaubon and 
Fritzsche, without sufficient grounds, assume the existence of a Chiasmus 
here. 

Ver. 23 ff. Mare obroc, x.7.A.] Question of imperfect yet growing faith, with 
emphasis upon oiroc : May this (who, however, does not possess the qualities 
looked for in the Messiah) not possibly be the Messiah ? John iy, 29. To this 


1 Kriiger’s note on Thucydides, as above. 


240 THE GOSPEL OF MATTHEW. 

corresponds the emphatic oiroc in ver. 24. —axobcavrec] that question pAre 
ovroc, etc. —eizov] to the multitude, not to Jesus ; for see ver. 25. They 
desire at once to put a stop to such dangerous language, and that, too, in a 
very demonstrative way. —év 76 BeeAleBodA, apyovre tov dayu.] See on ix. 34. 
apyovre t. 0. is not to be rendered : the ruler of the demons (which would 
have required 76 apy.), but : as ruler over the demons. Pragmatic addition. 
Mark iii. 22, comp. John vii. 20, x. 20, states the accusation in more 
specific terms. —eidéc] comp. ix. 4. The charge urged by the Pharisees is 
a foolish and desperate expedient proceeding from their hostility to 
Jesus, the absurdity of which He exposes. — pepio6eica kal? éavtqc} t.€., Ai- 
vided into parties, which contend with each other to its own destruction. 
In such a state of matters, a kingdom comes to ruin, and a town or a family 
must cease to exist ; crafjva: means the same as oryvar.1— Ver. 26 kai] the 
and subjoining the application. — ei 6 catavac tov catavav éxBdAAec] not : the 
one Satan, the other Satan (Fritzsche, de Wette), but: if Satan cast out 
Satan, if Satan is at once the subject and the object of the casting out, 
being the latter, inasmuch as the expelled demons are the servants and 
representatives of Satan. This is the only correct interpretation of an ex- 
pression so selected as to be in keeping with the preposterous nature of the 
charge, for there is only the one Satan; there are many demons, but 
only one Satan, who is their head. This explanation is an answer to de 
Wette, who takes exception to the reasoning of Jesus on the ground that 
Satan may have helped Christ to cast out demons, that by this means he 
might accomplish his own ends. No, the question is not as to one or two 
occasional instances of such casting out,—in which it might be quite con- 
ceivable that ‘‘for the nonce Satan should be faithless to his own spirits,” 
—hbut as to exorcism regarded in the light of a systematic practice, which, as 
such, is directed against Satan, and which therefore cannot be attributed to 
Satan himself, for otherwise he would be destroying his own kingdom. 

Ver. 27. A second way of rebutting the charge.—Notice the emphatic 
antithesis : gy and oi vioi tbujv. The latter (people ef your own school ; see, 
in general, note on vili. 12) are exorcists who have even pretended actually to 
cast out demons,’ who have emanated from the schools of the Pharisees, not 
the disciples of Jesus, as the majority of the Fathers have supposed.* Jesus 
reasons €a concessis. — avtoi (psi) buev are placed together for sake of em- 
phasis. 

Ver. 28. Previously it was éy6 that was emphatic in the antecedent 
clause ; but here it is év rvebuate Ocov : but if it is by THE POWER OF GOD’s 
Spirit that I, on the other hand, cast out the demons, then it follows that the 
KINGDOM OF GoD has come to you ; in the consequent clause (the apodosis) 


1 See Bornemann, ad Xen. Cyr. I. 1, 11; 
Ellendt, Lex. Soph. I. p. 851. 
2 Acts xix. 13; Josephus, Anét. viii. 2. 5, 


vos ex virulentia haec de actionibus meis 
pronuntiare,”’ ‘Because your disciples 
cast out demons, you do not attribute it to 


Bell. vii. 6.3; Justin, c. Tryph. p. 311. 

3“ Quod discipuli vestri daemonia ejici- 
unt, vos Beelzebuli non attribuitis; illi 
ergo possunt hac in re judices vestri esse, 


, 


Beelzebul; they therefore in this matter 
are able to be your judges, that you out of 
virulence affirm these things respecting my 
actions,’’ Lightfoot. 


CHAP. XII., 29-31. 241 


the emphasis is on the words: the kingdom of God has come, etc. The 
reasoning is founded on the axiom, that such deeds, wrought as they are by 
the power of God's Spirit, go to prove that He who performs them is no 
other than LHe who brings in the kingdom—the Messiah. Where the Messiah 
is present and working, there, too, is the kingdom; not yet, of course, as 
completely established, but preparing to become so through its preliminary 
development in the world. See on Luke xvii. 20 f. For g@dvew (used by 
classical writers as meaning to anticipate, 1 Thess. iv. 15), in the simple 
sense of to reach, arrive at, see on Phil. iii. 16.'—Notice, in the form of the 
reasoning in vv. 27, 28, the real dilemma (tertium non datur) : ei dé, ete. 

Ver. 29. "H] Transition by way of proceeding to give further proof of the 
actual state of the case. — rod icyupod| The article indicates the particular 
strong man (hero) with whom the ric has to do.—The thought embodied in 
this illustration is as follows : Or—if you still hesitate to admit the infer- 
ence in ver. 28—how is it possible for me to despoil Satan of his servants and 
instruments (ra okein avtovd Corresponding to the demons in the application)— 
withdraw them from his control—without having first of atl conquered him? 
Does my casting out of demons not prove that I have subdued Satan,—have 
deprived him of his power, just as it is necessary to bind a strong man before 
plundering his house ? For 4, when serving to introduce a question by way 
of rejoinder, see Biumlein, Partik. p. 132. The oxety in the illustration are 
the furniture of the house (not the weapons), as is evident from rf. oixiar avtobd 
below. Mark iii. 27.—The figurative languagé may have been suggested by 
a recollection of Isa. xlix. 24 f. 

Ver. 80. Jesus is speaking neither of the Jewish exorcists (Bengel, 
Schleiermacher, Neander), nor of the uncertain, fickle multitude,? neither of 
which would suit the context ; but as little is He expressing Himself in gen- 
eral terms ; so that per’ {uov must be applied to Satan, while Jesus is under- 
stood to be representing Himself as Satan’s enemy ,° for the truth is, He pre- 
viously as well as subsequently, speaks of Himself in the first person (vv. 28, 
31), and He could not be supposed, He who is the Messiah, to represent 
Himself as taking up a neutral attitude toward Satan. On the contrary, He 
is speaking of the Pharisees and their bearing toward Him, which must neces- 
sarily be of a hostile character, since they had refused to make common 
sause with Him as it behoved them to have done : He that is not with me is, 
as is seen in your case, my enemy, and so on. — ovrdywv | illustration borrowed 
from harvest operations; iii. 12, vi. 26 ; John iv. 36. 

Ver. 31. Aca rovro] refers back to all that has been said since ver. 25 : 
On this account-—because, in bringing such an accusation against me, ver. 
24, you have as my enemies (ver. 30) resisted the most undoubted evi- 
dence of the contrary (ver. 25 ff.),—on this account I must tell you, and so 
on. — ayapt. x. BAacd.| Genus and species: every sin and (in particular) 
blaspheming (of sacred things, as of the Messiah Himself, ver. 32). — 7 row mv. 


1 Fritzsche, a@ Rom. Il. p. 356; Liine- Zeitschr. 1851, p. 21 ff. ; Bleek. 

mann’s note on 1 Thess. ii. 16. 3 Jerome, Beza, Grotius, Wetstein, Kui- 
2 Elwert in the Stud. d. Wirtemb. Geisit. noel, de Wette, Baumgarten-Crusius. 

IX. 1, p. 111 ff.; Ullmann in the Deutsch. 


242 THE GOSPEL OF MATTHEW. 
Braco. | Blaspheming of the Spirit (Mark iii. 29; Luke xii. 10 (is the sin in ques- 
tion, and of which that allegation on the part of the Pharisees, ver. 24, is an 
instance, so that it is probably too much to say, as though the new birth must 
be presumed, that it can only occur in the case of a Christian,—a view which 
was held by Huther, Quenstedt, andothers. As, then, in the present instance 
the Pharisees had hardened themselves against an unmistakable revelation 
of the Spirit of God, as seen in the life and works of Jesus, had in fact 
taken up an attitude of avowed hostility to this Spirit ; so much so that 
they spoke of His agency as that of the devil : so in general the B2ac¢ypia 
Tov mvebvuatoc may be defined to be the sin which a man commits when he 
rejects the undoubted revelation of the Holy Spirit, and that not merely 
with a contemptuous moral indifference,’ but with the evil will struggling to 
shut out the light of that revelation ; and even goes the length of express- 
ing in hostile language his deliberate and conscious opposition to this divine 
principle, thereby avowing his adherence to his anti-spiritual confession. 
This sin is not forgiven, because in the utterly hardened condition which it 
presupposes, and in which it appears as the extreme point of sinful develop- 
ment, the receptivity for the influences of the Holy Spirit is lost, and noth- 
ing remains but conscious and avowed hatred toward this holy agency. In 
the case of the Christian, every conscious sin, and in particular all immoral 
speech, is also sin against the Holy Spirit (Eph. iv. 30); but what is meant 
by blaspheming the Spirit in the passage before us, is to go to the utmost ex- 
tremity in apostasy from Christ and zpdc¢ @dvarov (1 John v. 16, and Huther’s 
note).? For the way in which the blaspheming against the Spirit is sup- 
posed to coincide, as far as the Christian is concerned, with the falling away 
mentioned in Heb. vi. 4-6, see Delitzsch On the Hebrews, p. 231 ff. ; Liine- 
mann, p. 205 ff. —ovk agefycerac] should not have its meaning twisted by 
supplying ‘‘as a rule,” or such like’; nor, with Grotius, is oi« to be taken 
comparatively (more heinous than all other sins). The simple impossibility of 
forgiveness is just to be sought in the man’s own state of heart, which has 
become one of extreme hostility to God. 

Ver. 32. Kara tov viov r. avilp.| against the Son of man, such as Daniel prom- 
ised that the Messiah should be. In this case also (comp. on ix. 6, vili. 20) 
this select expression indicates the majesty of the Messiah in His human 
manifestation, in contrast to the hostile terms with which it has been assail- 
ed. Grotius and Fritzsche erroneously understand it as in contrast to man 


1 Gurlitt ; see, on the other hand, Miiller, 
Lehre v. d. Siinde, I. p. 598, ed. 5. 

2 See Grashoff in the Stud. u. Krit. 1833, 
p. 935 ff. ; Gurlitt, ibid. 1834, p. 599 ff. ; Tho- 
luck, ibid. 1836, p. 401 ff. ; Schaf, d. Stinde 
wider d. hel. G. 1841; Jul. Miller. lc. ; 
Alex. ab Oettingen, de pecc.in Sp. s. 1856, 
where the older literature may also be 
found, and where the different views are 
criticised. At p. 87, Oettingen defines the 
sin thus: “‘Impoenitentia perpetua atque 
incredulitas usque ad finem, quae ex rebel- 
lante et obstinatissima repudiatione testi- 


monii Sp. s. evangelio sese manifestantis 
et in hominum cordibus operantis profecta 
blasphemando in Sp. s. per verbum et faci- 
nus in lucem prodit,’’ *‘ Perpetual impen- 
itence and incredulity even to the end, 
which, from a rebellious and most obsti- 
nate repudiation of the testimony of the 
Holy Spirit manifesting Himself in the Gos- 
pel and working in the hearts of men, 
comes into light set forth through word 
and deed in blaspheming against the Holy 
Ghost.” 


CHAP. XII., 33. 243 
in gencral. — dgeAoera aire] For if the hostile expressions are directed 
only against the person of the Messiah as such, not against the Holy Spirit 
who may be recognized in that person, even without our ascribing to it a 
Messianic character, it is possible that fuller knowledge, change of disposi- 
tion, faith, may be created by the Spirit’s own influence,. whereupon the 
man will be forgiven. Comp. Luke xxiii. 34. —6 aidv oitoc is the period 
previous to the coming of the Messiah, 10 py, as Jesus understood it : 
the time before the second coming. ‘O aidv pédAwv, the period that succeeds the 
coming of the Messiah, 837 Diy, as Jesus understood it : the time that fol- 
lows the second coming.! — ote év TO wéAAovTe| Where it would be granted in the 
shape of acquittal in the judgment, combined with the eternal consequences 
of such acquittal (everlasting felicity). The threatening of a very different 
fate—that is to say, the thought of endless punishment—must not be in any 
way softened down (Chrysostom, de Wette). Schmid, bibl. Theol. I. p. 358,? 
is quite mistaken in thinking that the period referred to is that between 
death and judgment, which, in fact, does not belong to the aiay wéAAov at 
all. 

Ver. 33.3 Hither make the tree good (i.e. judge it to be good), and its fruit 
good ; or make the tree bad, and its fruit bad (see on vii. 17),—do not proceed 
in the same absurd way as you did when you pronounced an unfavorable 
judgment upon me, when you made the tree bad (declared me to be an 
instrument of the devil), and gave him credit for good fruit (the casting 
out of demons). ovezv, similarly to our make, is used to denote the expres- 
sion of a judgment or opinion, therefore in a declarative sense.* 
denotes the tree on which you pronounce a judgment, and nothing is 
to be supplied after tiv kaprov abtov. Some (Grotius, Fritzsche), who, 
however, attach substantially the same meaning to the figurative terms, 
take zoveiv in the sense of to suppose, assume, animo fingere,® though the 
imperative is not so well suited to the second clauses, kai tov kaprov, 
etc. Others, understanding roviv as meaning, partly to judge, as well 
as partly to assume, refer it to the evil disposition of the Pharisees, which can 
be detected in the kind of language they indulge in. So Miinster, Castalio,°® 


70 dévdpov 


) Bertholdt, Christol. p. 88; Koppe, Hue. 
1, ad Ep. ad Eph. p. 289 ff. 

2Comp. Olshausen and Stirm in the 
Jahrb. f. Deutsche Theol. 1861, p. 300. 

$ Euth. Zigabenus says correctly (comp. 
Hilary, Chrysostom, Theophylact, Erasmus, 
Beza, Jansen, Raphel, Kypke, Kuinoel, 
Schegg, Grimm): mo.joate avti tov elmate. 
Karatoxvver 5& wad éTEpws adTovs, ws avaKko- 
Aovéa kat mapa diaw Kkatnyopovrvtas., "Emet 
yap To pév ameAavverOar Tovs Saimovas ovK 
éxaxiGov . , . Tov d€ ameAavvovta TovTovs d.E- 
Baddov, mapaderypatikas avTovs eAeyxXet, TO LEV 
Epyov kaAbv KpivovTas, Tov Sé epyaconevoy Kako, 
Omep éaTly évar'TLOTHTOS Kal avaroxurTias, “ Do 
contrary to what you say. He now shames 
them again in another way, as blaming 
Him contrary to reason and nature. For, 


since they did not cast reproach on His 
driving out demons .... but slandered 
Him who drives them out, He convicts 
them by example of judging the work to 
be good, but the worker bad, which is mere 
contrariness and shamelessness.” 

4 John v. 18, viii. 53, x. 383; 1 Johni. 10, v. 
10; Xen. Hist. vi. 8. 5.: movetoe dé woAcuLovs, 
you declare them to be enemies. Stephanus, 
Thesaurus, ed. Paris, VI. p. 1292, and the 
passages in Raphel, Herod. p. 154; Kypke, 
I. p. 66.; among Attic writers usually in the 
middle voice. 

5 Xen. Anad. v. 7.9; Ast, Lex. Plat. III. p. 
136 f. 

6 “Hoe pro certo habere necesse esse, 
quae arbor sit bona, ejus fructum esse 
bonum... . Atqui ista vestra verba malus 


244 THE GOSPEL OF MATTHEW. 

Maldonatus, and others ; also de Wette, Neander, Bleek (comp. Olshausen). 
But in that case the imperative is no longer appropriate to the second 
clauses. According to Ewald,’ the connection and meaning may be thus 
stated : ‘‘ Let it not be supposed that these are but mere words! It is 
exactly the words . . . that spring from the deepest source, and proceed as 
it were from the root of a man; like tree, like fruit.” orjoare is a bold 
expression in reference not only to the fruit, as has been supposed, but also 
to the tree itself /(‘‘ cultivate the tree well, and thus make the tree good”), 
But cove7v is not used in this sense (which would have required gievy instead) ; 
and, once more, the imperative expression would scarcely have suited the 
second clauses, for an alternative so imperious might, with much more pro- 
priety, be addressed to persons who were undecided, neutral. Similarly 
Keim, though without any further grammatical elucidation (‘‘man either 
makes himself good—a tree which bears good fruit—or makes himself evil”). 

Ver. 34.2 For yevvfu. éyidv. comp. ili. 7. — r¢ dbvacfe] moral impossibility 
founded upon the wickedness of the heart, although not denying that one 
may still be open to conversion, and that with conversion the impossibility 
in question must cease to exist. — éx y. r. mepicoeip. t. xapd.| out of that 
with which the heart is overflowing, so that with the speaking a partial empty- 
ing, outflow, takes place.* 

Ver. 85. Oncavpéc, here the inward treasure-house (receptaculum) of the 
heart’s thoughts (Luke vi. 45) which are revealed in words, through which 
latter they take outward shape, are thrown out, as it were, from the heart 
of the speaker through the channel of the mouth. — rovypov Oycavpow| Syoavp. 
of wickedness. * 

Ver. 36 f. Nominative absolute, as in x. 14, 32.—dpyév] meaning, 
according to the context, morally useless, which negative expression brings 
out the idea more pointedly than zovypév, the reading of several Curss., 
would have done.° — é« yap tév Adywv cov, x.t.A.] For on thy words will be 
founded thine acquittal, on thy words will be founded thy condemnation in 
the Messianic judgment. The connection required that this matter of a man’s 
accountability for his words should be prominently noticed ; and, seeing that 
the words are to be regarded as the natural outcome of the disposition, such 
accountability is quite consistent with justice ; nor does it exclude responsi- 
bility for his actions as well, though this does not come into view in con- 
nection with the subject now under consideration. ° 


fructus est: ex quo consequens est vos dvovodoyik@s amodeixvugt mas ov SvvavrTat, 
stirpem esse malam,” ‘‘It is necessary to Euth. Zigabenus. 

hold this as certain, that whatever tree is 3 Beck, bibl. Seelenl. p. 68. 

good, its fruit is good..... Now indeed 4 Ajiso in Eur. Jon. 923. 


it is evil fruit these words of yours: from 
which the consequence is that you are an 
evil stock.” 

1 Comp. Baumgarten-Crusius, and Holtz- 
mann, p. 187. 

2 OvK éotiv Oavpacrtor, ct Toradta (the pre- 
posterous nature of which Jesus has just 
exposed, ver. 33) BAacdynmette, movnpot yap 
ovtes ov Svvacde ayata Aare. Elta kat 


5 Comp. Adyot akaprot in Plato, Phaedr. p. 
277 A. 

6 With referenee to the bearing of this 
saying on justification by faith, Calovius 
appropriately observes: ‘‘ Quid enim aliud 
sermones sancti, quam (ides sonans?” 
‘““What else are holy words than faith ~ 
sounding forth?” and vice versa. 


CHAP. XII., 38—40. 245 

Ver. 38. The narrative is more original than that in Luke xi. 16. — onueiov] 
a manifestation of miraculous power that, by appealing to the senses, will serve to 
confirm thy divine mission. In such a light they had not regarded the cure 
of the demoniacs, ver. 24. In thus insisting as they did upon yet further 
proof, they were actuated by a malicious desire to put Him to the test and 
reduce Him to silence. — aré cov] from Thee Thy sign. —In deference to 
Mark viii. 11, Luke xi. 16, many erroneously suppose that in this instance 
it is specially a onueiov éx Tov ovpavod that is meant. In xvi. 1, however, the 
sign is being requested for the second time. 

Ver. 39. Movyaric] d¢ agiatapevor ard Tov Heov, Theophylact. The Hebrew 
(Ps. Ixxiii. 27 ; Isa. lvii. 3 ff.; Ezek. xxiii. 27, al.) conceived his sacred 
relation to God as represented by the figure of marriage, hence idolatry and 
intercourse with Gentiles were spoken of as adultery.’ On this occasion 
Jesus transfers the figure to moral unfaithfulness to God, Jas. iv. 4 ; Rev. 
ii. 20 ff. — yeved] generation ; the representatives of which had certainly 
made the request, while the multitude, ver. 46, was likewise present. 
— énilyret] See on vi. 32. — onpeiov ob dodjoerar avti] Seeing that the demand 
of the Pharisees had manifestly pointed to a sign of a higher order than any 
with which Jesus had hitherto favored them,—that is to say, some wonder- 
ful manifestation, by which He might now prove, as He had never done 
before, that He was unquestionably the Messiah—for they would not admit 
that the miracles they had already seen were possessed of the evidential 
force of the actual oyueiov ; it is certain that, in this His reply, Jesus must 
likewise have used oyyeiov as meaning pre-eminently a confirmatory sign of a 
very special and convincing nature. Consequently there is no need to say 
that we are here precluded from looking upon the miracles in the light of 
signs, and that, according to our passage, they were not performed with any 
such object in view (de Wette) ; rather let us maintain, that they were cer- 
tainly performed for such a purpose (John xi. 41 f., with which John iv. 48 
is not at variance, comp. the note following viii. 4), though, in the present 
instance, it is not these that are referred to, but a sign xar’ éZoy/v, such as 
the Pharisees contemplated in their demand.’ — 76 oyu. "Iwva] which was given 
in the person of Jonah, John ii. 1. Jesus thus indicates His resurrection, dua 
tiv éuoldryTa, Euth. Zigabenus. Notice the emphasis in the thrice repeated 
ON|LELOV. 

Ver. 40. Tov xirovc| the monster of the deep.* The allusion is to the well- 
known story in Jonah ii. 1.—Jesus was dead only a day and two nights. 
But, in accordance with the popular method of computation (1 Sam. xxx, 
12 f.; Matt. xxvii. 63), the parts of the first and third day are counted as 
whole days, as would be further suggested by the parallel that is drawn be- 
tween the fate of the antitype and that of Jonah.*—The sign of Jonah has 


1 Gesenius, Thes. I. p. 422. 

2 Euth. Zigabenus (comp. Chrysostom) 
inaptly observes: ti obv'; od« emolnoev ExToTE 
onmetov ; eroinaev aAX od bu avtovs, meTwpw- 
peéevoryap joav adda dca THY TOV GAAwY MpedcLay, 
“ What then? did He not make thereafter 
asign? He did not, however, on their ac- 


count, for they had become hardened, but 
for the profit of the rest.” 

3 Hom. J/. v. 148; Od. iv. 446; Buttmann, 
Lexi. II. p. 95. 

4But the question as to what Jesus 
meant by eorar... ev TH Kapdia THs yjs, 
whether His lying in the grave (so the great- 


246 THE GOSPEL OF MATTHEW. 
nothing to do with the withered rod that budded, Num. xvii. (in answer to 
Delitzsch) ; Jonah is the type. 


Remarxk.—Luke (xi. 30) gives no explanation of the sign of Jonah (v. 40), as 
is also the case with regard to Matt. xvi. 4 (where, indeed, according to Holtz-’ 
mann, we have only,a duplicate of the present narrative). Modern critics 
(Paulus, Eckermann, Schleiermacher, Dav. Schulz, Strauss, Neander, Krabbe, 
de Wette, Baumgarten-Crusius, Ammon, Bleek, Weizsiicker, Schenkel) have 
maintained that what Jesus meant by the sign of Jonah was not His resurrection 
at all, but His preaching and His whole manifestation, so that ver. 40 is supposed 
to be an “‘ awkward interpolation,” belonging to a later period (Keim), an inter- 
polation in which it is alleged that an erroneous interpretation is put into Jesus’ 
mouth. But (1) if in ver. 41 it is only the preaching of Jonah that is mentioned, 
it is worthy of notice that what is said regarding the sign is entirely brought 
to a close in ver. 40, whereupon, by way of threatening the hearers and putting 
them to shame, ver. 41 proceeds to state, not what the Ninevites did in conse- 
quence of the sign, but what they did in consequence of the preaching of Jonah ; 
and therefore (2) it is by no means presupposed in ver. 41 that the Ninevites had 
been made aware of the prophet’s fate. (8) Of course, according to the historical 
sense of the narrative, this fate consisted in the prophet’s being punished, and 
then pardoned again ; but according to its typical reference, it at the same time 
constituted a oneiov, deriving its significance for after times from its antitype as 
realized in Christ's resurrection; that it had been a sign for the Ninevites, is no- 
where said. (4) If Jesus is ranked above Jonah in respect of His person or 
preaching, not in respect of the sign, this, according to what has been said 
under observation 1, in no way affects the interpretation of the sign. (5) The 
resurrection of Jesus was a sign not merely for believers, but also for un- 
believers, who either accepted Him as the Risen One, or became only the more 
confirmed in their hostility toward him. (6) Ver. 40 savors entirely of the 
mode and manner in which Jesus elsewhere alludes to His resurrection. Of 
course, in any case, he is found to predict it only in an obscure sort of way (see 
on xiv. 21), not plainly and in so many words ; and accordingly we do not find 
it more directly intimated in ver. 40, which certainly it would have been if it 
had been an interpretation of the sign put into the Lord’s mouth ex eventu. 
The expression isa remarkable parallel to John ii. 21, where John’s explanation 
of it as referring to the resurrection has been erroneously rejected. It follows 
from all this that, so far as the subject-matter is concerned, the version of Luke 


than it is to that of a grave cut out of the 
rock on the surface of the earth. If, on 


ernumber of expositors), or His abode in 
Hades (Tertullian, Irenaeus, Theophylact, 


Bellarmin, Maldonatus, Olshausen, K6nig, 
Lehre von Christi Hollenfahrt, Frankf. 1842, 
p. 54; Kahnis, Dogmat. I. p. 508), is deter- 
mined by xapdiarys ys, to Which expression 
the resting in the grave does not sufficiently 
correspond ; for the heart of the earth can 
only indicate its lowest depths, just as capita 
7s Jadacons, Means the depths of the sea 
in Jonah ii. 4, from which the biblical ex- 
pression xapéia in our present passage 
seems to have been derived. Again, the 
parallel in the cotAia tov «yrovs is, in any 
case, better suited to the idea of Hades 


the other hand, Jesus Himself has very 
distinctly intimated that His dying was to 
be regarded as a descending into Hades 
(Luke xxiii. 43), then €orar . . . év TH Kapd. 7. 
y. must be referred to His sojourn there. 
There is nothing to warrant Giider (Z7- 
schein. Chr. unter ad. Todten, p. 18) in disput- 
ing this reference by pointing to such 
passages as Ex. xv. 8; 2 Sam. xviii. 14. We 
should mistake the plastic nature of the 
style in such passages as those, if we did 
not take 1) as referring to the inmost 
depth. 


CHAP. XIE. 41-452 247 


xi. 30 is not to be regarded as differing from that of Matthew, but only as less 
complete, though evidently proceeding on the understanding that the interpre- 
tation of the Jonah-sign is to be taken for granted (Matt. xvi. 4). 


Ver. 41 f. ’Avacrjcovtac] Men of Nineveh will come forward, that is to say, 
as witnesses. Similarly Dip, Job xvi. 8; Mark xiv. 57.’ Precisely similar 
is the use of éyepdjoerac below (comp. xi. 11, xxiv. 11). Others (Augustine, 
Beza, Elsner, Fritzsche) interpret: in vitam redibunt. This is flat and insipid, 
and inconsistent with éy rq xpicer. — peta] with, not : against. Both parties 
are supposed to be standing alongside of each other, or opposite each other, 
in the judgment. — xataxp.] by their conduct, é7e petevdyoav, etc.2 Comp. 
Rom. ii. 27. — de] like ver. 6, refers to the person of Jesus, which is a 
grander phenomenon than Jonah. For riciov, comp. xil. 6.— Bacidicca vérov] 
a queen from the South, t.e., from Sheba in Southern Arabia, 1 Kings x. 1 ff. ; 
2 Chron. ix. 1 ff. 

Vy. 43-45. Having foretold that the existing generation would be con- 
demned on the judgment day by the Ninevites and that queen from the 
South, Jesus now proceeds—according to the account in Matthew, which 
is undoubtedly original *— to explain in an allegorical way the condition of 
things on which this melancholy certainty is founded. The case of this gen- 
eration, He says, will be very much like that of ademoniac, into whom the 
demon that has been expelled from him is ever seeking to return. The demon 
finds his former abode ready for his reception, and, reinforced by seven 
others still more wicked than himself, he again enters the demoniac, making 
his latter condition worse than the former. So will it be with this genera- 
tion, which, though it should happen to undergo a temporary amendment, 
will relapse into its old state of confirmed wickedness, and become worse 
than before. The reason of this is to be found in the fact that the people 
in question have never entered into true fellowship with Christ, so that their 
amendment has not proved of a radical kind, has not been of the nature of 
anew birth. Comp. Luke xi. 23, 24 ff., where the words are connected 
with what is said in Matt. xii. 30, and are equally allegorical, and 
not intended literally to describe a case in which demons have actu- 
ally returned after their expulsion. — dé] the explanatory autem. It is 
quite gratuitous to suppose that in our present Matthew something has 
dropped out before ver, 43 (Ewald). — a6 roi av8pérov] in whom he had 
had his abode. — dv avidpwv réxwv] because deserts (7 dvudpoc, the desert, in 
Herod. iii. 4) were reputed to be the. dwelling-place of the demons.* — 
é20dv, ver. 44 (see the critical remarks), is due to the fact that the rveiua 
axadaprov is viewed in the light of adainwyv, in accordance with a con- 
struction, kata civeccv, of which classical writers-also make a similar use. °— 
cxoAdlovra, cecapwu. kK. KeKoou.| empty (unpossessed), swept and garnished, a 
climax by way of describing the man’s condition as one that is calculated to 


1 Plat. Legg. xi. p. 937 A ; Plut. Marcell. 27. 4 Tob. viii. 3; Bar. iv. 35; Rev. xviii. 2. 
2“* x ipsorum comparatione isti merito 5 See Kiihner, II. 1, p. 48 f.; Bornemann 
damnabuntur,’’ Augustine. in the Sdchs. Stud. 1846, p. 40. 


$ Comp. Weiss, 1864, p. 84 f. 


248 THE GOSPEL OF MATTHEW. 


induce re-possession, not to indicate (Bengel, de Wette, Bleek) that healthy 
state of the soul which forms such an obstacle to the demon in his efforts 
to regain admission, that he is led to call in the assistance of others. This 
would be to represent the state of the case in such a way as to make it 
appear that the demon had found the house barred against him ; but it 
would likewise be at variance with the whole scope of the allegory, which 
is designed to exhibit the hopeless incorrigibility of the yevea, so that what is 
pragmatically assumed is not the idea of moral soundness, but merely that 
of a readiness to welcome the return of evil influence after a temporary 
amendment. The reinforcement by seven other spirits is not to be ascribed 
to the need of greater strength in order to regain possession, but rather 
(hence rovypérepa, not iayupdrepa) to the fiendish desire now to torment the 
man much more than before ; and so, according to our interpretation, it is 
no more necessary to impute the calling in of those others to the noble 
motive of sympathetic friendship (de Wette’s objection) than it would be 
in the case of the legion with its association of demons. — ra écyara] the 
last, i.e., the condition in which he finds himself under the latter possession ; 
Ta mpata : when there was only one demon within him.’ 

Vv. 46-50. The same incident is given in Luke viii. 19 ff. in a different 
but extremely loose connection, and, as there recorded, compares unfavor- 
ably with Matthew’s version (in answer to Schleiermacher, Keim). The 
occasion of the incident as given in Mark iii. 20 ff. is altogether peculiar 
and no doubt historical. — oi adeAgot abrov] even if nothing more were said, 
these words would naturally be understood to refer to the brothers according 
to the flesh, sons of Joseph and Mary, born after Jesus ; but this reference is 
placed beyond all doubt by the fact that the mother is mentioned at the 
same time (Mark iii. 31 ; Luke viii. 19 ; John ii. 12 ; Acts i. 14), just as in 
xiii. 55 the father and the sisters are likewise mentioned along with him. 
The expressions in i. 25, Luke ii. 7, find their explanation in the fact of the 
existence of those literal brothers of Jesus. Comp. note on i. 25 ; 1 Cor. ix. 
5. The interpretations which make them sons of Mary’s sister, or half 
brothers, sons of Joseph by a previous marriage, were wrung from the words 
even at a very early period (the latter already to be found asa legend in 
Origen ; the former, especially in Jerome, since whose time it has come to 
be generally adopted in the West), in consequence of the dogmatic assump- 
tion of Mary’s perpetual virginity (nay, even of a corresponding state of 
things on the part of her husband as well), and owing to the extravagant 
notions which were entertained regarding the superhuman holiness that at- 
tached to her person as called to be the mother of Jesus.” — éw| The former 


12 Pet. ii. 20; Matt. xxvii. 64. brothers and sisters for sonsand daughters 

2 The same line of interpretation is,for of Alphaeus; while Hofmann, on the other 
similar reasons, still adopted in the present hand, has abandoned this view, which 
day by Olshausen, Arnoldi, Friedlieb, Z../. he had previously maintained (Hrlang. 
§ 36; Lange, apost. Zeitalt. p. 189 ff.; and in Zeitschr. 1851, Aug., p. 117). in favor of the 
Herzog’s Hneyki. V1. p. 415 ff. ; Lichtenstein, correct interpretation (Schriftbew. II. 2, p. 
L.J. p. 100 ff.; Hengstenberg on John ii. 12; 405 f.). See, besides, Clemen in Winer’s 
Schegg, and others; also Déllinger, Chris- Zeitschr. 1829, 3, p. 829 ff.; Blom, de rots abeAp- 
tenth. u. Kirche, p. 103 f., who take the ois kuptov, 1839 ; Wieseler in the Stud. u. Arit. 


CHAP. XII., 46-50. 249 
incident (ver. 22 ff.) must therefore have occurred in some house. Mark 
iii, 20 ; Luke vill. 20. —émxi rovg padytac. airov] not his hearers generally 
(rovc dyAovce), and yet not merely the Twelve (ver. 50), but those who fol- 
lowed Him in the character of disciples ; these He indicated by pointing 
to them with the finger. —idod 7 uArnp ov, «.7.2.| my nearest relations in 
the true ideal sense of the word.’ True kinship with Jesus is established 
not by physical, but by spiritual relationship ; John i. 12f., iii. 8; Rom. 
viii. 29.7 Comp. Jesus’ own requirement in x. 37. He is not to be under- 
stood as avowing a sharp determination to break off His connection with 
them (Weizsiicker, p. 400),—a view, again, which the account in Mark is 
equally inadequate to support. Besides, it is evident from our passage, 
compared with Mark iii. 20 f., John vii. 3, that the mother of Jesus, who is 
placed by the latter in the same category with the brothers, and ranked 
below the yadyrai, cannot as yet be fairly classed among the number of His 
believers, strange as this may seem when viewed in the light of the early 
gospel narrative (Olshausen has recourse to the fiction of a brief struggle to 
believe). Again, judging from the whole repelling tendency of His answer, 
it would appear to be more probable that He declined the interview with 
His relations altogether, than that He afterwards still afforded them an op- 
portunity of speaking with Him, as is supposed by Ebrard and Scheeg. Be 
this as it may, there is nothing to justify Chrysostom and Theophylact in 
charging the mother and the brothers with ostentation, inasmuch as they had 
requested Jesus to come out to them, instead of their going in to Him. — 
batic yap, k.T.A.] spoken in the full consciousness of His being the Son of 
God, who has duties incumbent upon Him in virtue of His mission. — airéc| 
He, no other. 





1842, p. 71 ff., and note on Gal. i. 19; Schaf, 
ueber d. Verh. des Jak. Bruders des Herrn zu 
Jakob. Alphidi, 1842; Neander, Gesch. d. 
Pflanzung u. 8. w. p. 554 ff.; Hilgenfeld on 


1Comp. Hom. J. vi. 429; Dem. 287. 11; 
Xen. Anad. i. 3. 6, and Kiihner’s note ; Eur. 
fec. 280 f., and Pflugk’s note. 

2 In reference to the seeming harshness of 


Gal. p. 188 ff.; Wijbelingh, Diss. quis sit 
epistolae Jacobi scriptor, 1854, p. 1 ff.; Rig- 
genbach, Vorles. wb. d. Leb. d. Herrn, p. 
286 ff. ; Huther on Jas. Hinl. §1; Kahnis, 
Dogm. 1. p. 426 f.; Wiesinger, 2. Br. Judd 
Einl. ; Laurent, neut. Stud. p. 153 ff.; Keim, 
J. p. 422 ff. For the various interpretations 
of the Fathers, see Thilo, Cod. Apocr. I. p. 
262 ff. 


the reply, Bengel appropriately observes: 
“Non spernit matrem, sed anteponit Pa- 
trem ; ver. 50, et nune non agnoscit matrem 
et fratres sub hoe formali,’”’ ‘‘ He does not 
scorn His mother, but prefers to her His 
Father ; ver. 50, and now, on this principle, 
does not acknowledge His mother and His 
brethren.” 


250 THE GOSPEL OF MATTHEW. 


CHAPTER XII. 


Ver. 1. The omission of dé (Lachm. Tisch. 8) is supported by B®, three Curss. 
Tt. Arm. Aeth. Or. But the apparently superfluous Jé might very easily be left 
out, coming as it does before r7.— azo 7. oix.] Lachm. Tisch. 8: é« 1, oix., after 
Z, &, 33, Or. Chrys. Weakly attested. Yet B, Or. (once) omit the preposition 
altogether. — Ver. 2. 76 rAoiov] Lachm, : xAoiov (BC LZ&). But see on viii. 
23. — Ver. 4. #A9e] Lachm. : 7A6ov, after D L Z, Curss. Since xarégayev below 
necessarily presupposes the singular, this reading must be regarded as merely 
an error on the part of the transcriber, which was amended in B, Curss. by 
substituting é4évra and omitting the following «ai (so Tisch. 7). Otherwise, 
Fritzsche, de conform. N. T. crit. Lachm. p. 52 £. — Ver. 7. Instead of arérviSav, 
with Tisch. 8, read éxvéav, after D 8, Curss. The reading of the Received 
text is from Luke. — Ver. 9. dxovew] is, with Tisch., to be deleted, in accord- 
ance with BL &* Codd. It. See on xi. 15. — Ver. 14. avroic] Elz. : éx’ abrovic, 
against decisive testimony. An interpretation. — Ver. 15. svvec:] So Elz. 
1624, 1633, 1641, Griesb. Matth. Lachm. Tisch., according to decisive testi- 
mony. Scholz: cvvidor. —idowua] Lachm. Tisch. : idcovw, after testimony 
of so decisive a character that it cannot have been derived from the LXX., 
while the subjunctive mood may have been adopted for sake of conformity 
with the preceding verbs, Comp. on John xii. 40.— Ver. 16. After ora 
Lachm. deletes the superfluous iuor, only according to B, Curss. Codd. It. Hil.; 
and for dkove, he and Tisch. read daxovovow, after BC M X 8 and Curss. Or. 
Eus. Cyr. Chrys. The latter is a mechanical conformation to the previous 
verb. — Ver. 17. yap] is deleted by Tisch. 8, only after X &, Curss. It. Arm. 
Aeth. Hil, — Ver. 18. For ozeipovroc Lachm. Tisch. 8 read ozeipavroc, after B 
X N* Curss. Syr. p. Chrys. Correctly ; the oxeipwv of ver. 3 would still be lin- 
gering in the minds of the transcribers. Therefore, in deference to still 
stronger testimony, should oze/pavri be adopted in ver. 24, with Lachm. and 
Tisch. 8. — Ver. 22. rovrov] omitted after aidvoc in B D &* Arm. Cant. Vere. 
Germ. 1, Corb. 2, Clar. Deleted by Lachm. and Tisch. Explanatory addition. 
— Ver. 23. The form ovveic (Lachm. Tisch., after B D &, 238, Or.) instead of 
ovvidv has been adopted in consequence of ver. 19. — Ver. 25. éoreipe] Lachm. 
and Tisch. : éxéorecpev, after B 8** (* has éxéonapxev) and Curss. Arm. It. 
Vulg. Clem. Or. and several Fathers. Correctly ; how easily might the preposi- 
tion be dropped through carelessness in transcribing ! More easily than that the 
éréoreipev, Which occurs nowhere else in the New Testament, should have been 
inserted as a gloss. — Ver. 27. The article, which in Elz. is placed before C.Cavia, 
is deleted by Griesb. and the later critics, according to decisive testimony. So 
also with regard to 7@ before «apo in ver. 30, where Fritzsche wrongly main- 
tains 7@ to be necessary. — Ver. 30. ei¢ déouac] D L X A, Curss. Or. Chrys. 
Codd. I. have merely désuac, some with and others without av7a. Tisch. 7 has 
deleted cic (comp. Rinck), and that correctly ; an explanatory addition. — Ver. 
32. The form xataccyvoiv (Lachm. Tisch.) is only found in B* D; in the case 


CHAP. XIII., 1-52. 251 
of Mark iv. 32, only in B*. — Ver. 34. ov«] Lachm. Tisch. : oidév, after B C M 
A &* Curss. Syr. p. Arm. Clem. Or. Chrys., should be adopted on the strength 
of this testimony, and because od« is found in Mark, and is by way of toning 
down the expression. — Ver. 35. dia] 8* 1, 18, 33, 124, 253 insert ’Hoaiov, which 
is supported by Eus. Porphyr. and Jerom, A false gloss,! notwithstanding 
that it is adopted by Tisch. 8. Jerom. suggests ’Acud. — xécuov] deleted by 
Tisch. 8, after B S8** 1, 22, several Codd. of the It. Syree™ Or. Clem. Eus. The 
omission was occasioned by the LXX., which has merely az’ apyjc. — Ver. 36. 
6 *Inoovc] and airoic, ver. 37, as well should be deleted as interpolations, accord- 
ing to B D ¥, Curss. Verss. and Or. Chrys. — Ver. 40. xaiera:] Elz. Lach, 
and Tisch. 8: kataxaieva, after B D 8. Taken from ver. 30, — For ailav. 
tovrov Lachm. and Tisch. have merely aiwvoc, after B DT &, Curss. Verss. Cyr. 
Ir. Hil. Correctly ; rovrov is quite a common addition, as in ver. 22. — Ver. 
44. rat duoia] B D &, Vulg. It. Syrr Copt. Arm. Tisch. have merely éyoia ; 
Lachm. has ra/vv only in brackets. It would be more readily deleted than 
inserted, for at this point a new series of parables begins, and it would seem 
to be in its proper place only in the passage that follows (vv. 45, 47). — Ver. 
46, For é¢ evpev, we should, with Griesb. Fritzsche, Scholz, Lachm. and Tisch., 
read eipdv dé, after BDL &, 1, 33, Cyr. Cypr. and Verss. To continue the 
discourse with the relative was in accordance with what precedes and what 
comes after, which accounts for the relative construction superseding the evpav 
dé, Which would seem to break the continuity. Ver. 48. Lachm. has adrjv 
after avai. ; so also Tisch. 7. On too inadequate testimony. With Tisch. 8, 
and on sufficient testimony, read instead of ayyeia the more uncommon term 
dyyn. — Ver. 51. Aéyer aitoig 6 "Iqcovc] before ovryx. is wanting in B D &, Copt. 
Aeth. Vulg. Sax. It. (not Brix. Clar. Germ. 2) Or. Deleted by Fritzsche, 
Lachm, and Tisch. ; would be more readily inserted than omitted, although 
the discourse of Jesus is only continued. With Fritzsche, Lachm. Tisch., and 
on somewhat similar authority, we should delete the xipie after vai as being a 
common addition. — Ver. 52. 77 Baowdeia] Elz. Scholz: ei¢ tAv BactAciav, Lachm.: 
év TH Baows, (D M 42, Vulg. It. Chrys. Ir. Hil. Ambr. Aug.). Both readings 
appear to be explanations of 77 Baovd., which latter is sufficiently confirmed 
by the testimony of B C K II 8, Curss. Syr. Ar. Aeth. Slav. Or. Ath. Cyr. 
Procop. — Ver. 55. ’Iwoyc] without adequate testimony, B C &** 1, 33, Copt. 
Syr. p. (on the margin) Syr™ It. (exc. Cant.) Vulg. Sax. Or. (twice) Eus. Jer. 
have ‘Iwo7¢.; DEF GMS UV XT S8*? Curss. Cant. Or. (once) have 
Accordingly, with Lachm. and Tisch., we ought to prefer “Iwo7¢ as 
having the largest amount of testimony in its favor. See, besides, Wieseler in 
the Stud. u. Arit. 1840, p. 677 ff. 


Todvrne. 


Vv. 1-52. ’Ev 62 7H ju. éx.] fuller detail than in Mark iv. 1, which evan- 
gelist, however, describes the situation with more precision, though he like- 
wise introduces the parable of the sower immediately after the scene with 


1 A clear idea of the age of this erroneous 
addition may be obtained from the fact 
that it was even found in a copy of Mat- 
thew made use of by the Clementine Homi- 
lies (see Uhlhorn, Homil. uw. Recogn. d. Clem. 
p. 119), and also from the circumstance of 
Porphyry’s chuckling over the ’Haaiov as 


beingan error on the part of the inspired 
evangelist. But the weight of critical tes- 
timony is very decidedly in favor of re- 
jecting the reading ’Hoaiov in Matthew as 
spurious (in answer to Credner, Beitr. I. 
p. 302 ff. ; Schneckenburger, p. 136, and 
Bleek). 


2a2 THE GOSPEL OF MATTHEW. 

the mother and brothers (otherwise in Luke viii.), and indeed as one of the 
many (iv. 2, 83) that were spoken at that time, and thereupon proceeds in 
ver. 26 ff. to add another having reference to sowing, which is followed 
again by the parable of the mustard seed, which Luke does not introduce 
till xiii. 18 ff. along with that of the leaven. But seeing that Matthew lets 
it be distinctly understood (ver. 36) that the first four parables (on to ver. 
84) were spoken in presence of the mudtitude, and the other three again 
within the circle of the disciples, there is the less reason for regarding the 
similarity of character which runs through the seven, as recorded by Matthew, 
in the light of an ‘‘ overwhelming” with parables (Strauss), and the less need 
to ascribe some of them (Keim, comp. Schenkel), and especially those of the 
mustard seed and the leaven, to a different period, from their being supposed 
to be applicable (Weizsiicker) to a later order of things. Yet, when we 
consider that Jesus surveyed the future of His work with a prophetic eye, 
we need not be at a loss to see how a parabolic address might contemplate 
a later state of things just as fittingly as does the Sermon on the Mount, to 
which this series of parables stands in the same relation as the superstruct- 
ure to the foundation of a building. Comp. Ewald, who holds, however, 
that originally the parables stood in a somewhat different order. — azo r. 
oixiac| is to be taken in connection with fw, xii. 46, and not to be regarded 
as referring to no house in particular (Hilgenfeld). 

Ver. 2. To rioiov] the boat standing by. —éz? rév aiyiaddv| along the shore 
(comp. xiv. 19), as in xviii. 12.1. The expression is suited to the idea of a 
gathering of people extending over a considerable space. 

Ver. 3 f. Tapafoaq (Arist. Rhet, 11. 20), win, the narrating of an incident 
which, though imaginary, still falls within the sphere of natural events, with the 
view of thereby illustrating some truth or other.2 See Unger, de parabolar, Jesu 
natura, interpretatione, usu, 1828, who gives the following definition : colla- 
tio per narratiunculam jictam, sed veri similem,® serio illustrans rem subli- 
miorem.* The correct canon for the interpretation of the parables is already 
to be found in Chrysostom on xx. 1: oidé ypy mavta ta év Taic TapaBoraic 
Kata AéEw Teptepyalecda, aAAd Tov oKérov paddovrtec, dv Ov ovveTédn, ToUTOV 
Opérecdat kal undiv Todutpaypoveiv mepartépw, ‘‘ Nor is it necessary to waste 
labor by way of explanation over all matters in the parables, but having 


1 Winer, p. 380 [E. T. 508]; Nagelsbach, 
note on Hom. JZ/. ii. 3808. 

2tva Kat eudatikwtepov Tov Adyov oLjon, 
Kat mAclova THY pVnLHY evdyn, Kal Um’ OW 
ayayn Ta Tpaypara, ‘‘that He might make 
His teaching more emphatic,and strengthen 
the memory, and bring affairs under sight,” 
Chrysostom. 

3To be distinguished from the fable, 
which, for example, may introduce animals, 
t7ees, and such like as speaking and acting. 
“Fabula est, in qua nec vera nec veri- 
similes res continentur,” Cic. invent. i. 19. 
So far asappears from the New Testament, 
Christ never made use of the fable; as little 
did the apostles ; in the Old Testament, in 


Judg. ix. 8 ff. 

4 Observe, moreover, that the New Tes- 
tament rapaBodAy and own may mean some- 
thing more comprehensive and less definite 
(including every description of figurative 
speech, Mark iii. 23, iv. 30, vii. 17 ; Luke iv. 
22, Vv. 86, vi. 69; xiv. 7; Matt. xv. 15, xxive 
32) than is implied in the above definition 
of the parable asa hermeneutical terminus 
technicus. Comp. the Johannean mapousca 
(note on John x. 6). John does not use the 
word parable ; but then he does not report 
any such among the sayings of Jesus, 
though he has a few allegories; as, for 
example, those of the vine and the good 
shepherd. 


CHAP. XIII., 6-12. 259 
learned the design for which it was constructed, to get possession of that and 
not to busy one self with anything further.” — 6 oreipwr]| the sower, whom I 
have in view. Present participle, used as a substantive. See on ii. 20. A 
similar parable is given in the Jerusalem Talmud Milaim I. f. 27. — apa r. 
6d6v| upon the road (which went round the edge of the field), so that it was 
not ploughed in or harrowed in along with the rest. — ra retpady| the rocky 
parts, i.e., ‘*saxum continuum sub terrae superficie tenui,” Bengel. 

Ver. 6 f. "Exavyar.] was scorched (Rev. xvi. 8 f. ; Plut. Mor. p. 100 D, with 
reference to fever-heat). -— dia 76 wy Eyew pitav] Owing to the shallowness of 
the earth, the seed sent up shoots before the root was duly formed. — ézi 
tac axavd. | wpon the thorns (which were about to spring up there), and these 
grew up (avéByoav, Xen. Oec. xix. 18), shot up.’ 

Ver. 8. ‘Exarév x.7.4.] That grains are meant is self-evident, without our 
having to supply xaprotc. For the great fertility of the East, and especially 
of Galilee, consult Wetstein on this passage.” However, such points of de- 
tail (comp. as to éxarév, Gen. xxvi. 12) should not be pressed, serving as they 
do merely to enliven and fill out the picture. 

Vv. 9, 10. See on xi. 15. —The parabolic discourse is resumed at ver. 24, 
after Jesus has finished the private exposition of those already spoken, into 
which He was led in consequence of the question addressed to Him by the 
disciples. The exposition was given in the boat, where it is sufficiently pos- 
sible to conceive such a conversation to have taken place without the neces- 
sity of our regarding the whole situation as imaginary (Hilgenfeld), or with- 
out our having to suppose it ‘‘rather more probable” that the exposition 
took place after the whole series of parables was brought to a close (Keim). 
—Ver. 10. The question, which in Matthew is framed to suit the reply 
(Neander, Weiss, Holtzmann), appears in a different and certainly more 
original form (in answer to Keim) in Mark iv. 10 ; Luke viii. 9. 

Ver. 11. Aédora:] by God, through the unfolding, that is, of your inward 
powers of perception, not merely by means of the exposition (Weizsicker, 
p. 413). The opposite condition, ver. 13.—yrdvar] even without the help 
of parabolic illustration, although previous to the outpouring of the Spirit, 
nay, previous to the second coming (1 Cor. xiii. 9 f.), this would always 
be the case only to’ an imperfect degree. —ré wor. 7. Bac. r. oipav.] the 
secret things of the Messiah’s kingdom, things which refer to the Messiah’s 
kingdom. They are called pvarfpia, because their aroxazupec was now being 
brought about for the first time by means of the gospel.* They are the 
purposes that are hid in God, which man can only know by the help of 
divine teaching, and which the gospel unveils. — éxe/vore 62 oi dédorac] is 
still to be connected with érz (because). [See note VII., p. 265, et seq. | 

Ver. 12. Proverbial saying derived from the experience of ordinary life 
(xxv. 29) : The wealthy man will become still richer even to superabun- 
dance ; while the poor man, again, will lose the little that still remains to 
him ; see Wetstein. In this instance the saying is used with reference to 


1 Comp. Jer iv. 3; Theophrastus, ec. pi. li. Erldut. p. 171; Keim, I. p. 448. 
17. 3: ro 77 axavdn eriometpopevov oméepma. ’ Comp. note on Rom. xi. 25, Xvi. 25. 
2 Dougtius, Anal. II. p. 15 f.; Koster, 


“ 


254 THE GOSPEL OF MATTHEW. 


spiritual possessions, and is applied thus : With the knowledge you have al- 
ready acquired, you are ever penetrating more deeply and fully into the things 
of God's kingdom ; the multitude, on the other hand, would lose altogether the 
little capacity it has for understanding divine truth, unless I were to assist its 
weak powers of apprehension by parabolic illustrations. 'The contrast between 
the two cases in question is not to be regarded as consisting in uti and non 
uti (Grotius), being willing and not being willing (Schege). — For the passive 
mepiocevectat, to be in possession of a superabundance, see on Luke xv. 17. — 
botic éyec 1s the nominative absolute, as in vil. 24, x. 14. éyew and ovx 
éyerv, in the sense of rich and poor, is likewise very common in classical au- 
thors.’ 

Ver. 13. Aca rovro|] refers to what immediately precedes ; because their 
case is similar to that of the poor, and so they would lose the little that 
they had ; but the 67: (because, namely) which follows introduces an expla- 
nation by way of justifying dua rovro (comp. John x. 17), and which depicts 
in proverbial language (Isa. xxxil. 3, xxxv. 5 f., 9 f. ; Jer. v. 21) the peo- 
ple’s dullness of apprehension. It is unnecessary to make the reference of 
dia Touro extend so far back as ver. 11 (Fritzsche, de Wette, Bleek). In de- 
fiance of grammar, yet in deference to the parallels in Mark and Luke, Ols- 
hausen says that 671, because, expresses the result intended (iva).® 

Vv. 14, 15. Kai] still depending on é7 ; but, ina manner suited to the 
simplicity of the language, and the conspicuous reference to the fulfilling of 
the prophecy, it begins a new sentence : and—indeed so utterly incapable are 
they of comprehending the pure, literal statement of divine truth—is being 
Sulfilled with regard to them, and so on. avarAnp., as being more forcible 
than the simple verb (comp. on Gal. vi. 2, and éxzAnp., Acts xill. 33), is ex- 
pressly chosen (occurring nowhere else in Matthew, and, as referring to the 
predictions and such like, not found again in the whole New Testament), 
and for sake of emphasis placed at the beginning of the sentence ; airoic is 
the dative of reference : the fulfilment of the prophet’s words is realized in 
them.—The passage in question is Isa. vi. 9, 10, as found in the LXX.3— 
éxraybvdy7] in a metaphorical sense, like pinguis. See Wetstein. The ex- 
pression represents the indolent and inactive state into which the energies 
of the spiritual life have been allowed to sink. — Bapéwc jxovoar| they have 
become dull of hearing (Bapvixoor). —éxduprvoav| have they closed, Isa. vi. 10, 
xxix. 10 ; Lam. iii. 44. The genuine Greek form is kataytew,* — ufrore| 
ne; they are not willing to be instructed by me, and morally healed. This. 
shows that, in regard to the weakness of their capacity, it is their own «will 
that is to blame.—By adopting the reading idcouac (see the critical remarks) 
we do not introduce the meaning, which is out of place in the present in- 
stance : and I will heal them (Fritzsche), but rather effect a change in the 
construction of u#rore,® that is, in accordance with the sense (because ex- 





1 Ast, ad Plat. Legg. V. p. 172; Borne- 4See Lobeck, Phryn. p. 889 f.; Becker, 
mann, ad Xen. Anab. vi. 6. 38. Anecd. I. p. 108. 

2 Similarly Schegg; comp. also Weiz- 5 Heindorf, ad Plat. Crat. p. 36; Her- 
siicker, p. 418. mann, ad Soph. El. 992; Winer, p. 468 [E. T. 


’ Comp. on John xii. 40 ; Acts xxviii. 25 ff. 630]. 


| 

CHAP! KIT 16; 1%. 255 
pressing the result). Comp. note on Mark xiv. 2. Notice in idcoua the 
consciousness of being a personal revelation of God. 


Remark. — According to Matthew, then, the principle on which Jesus pro- 
ceeds is this; He speaks to the multitude in parables, because this mode of 
instruction is suited to their intellectual poverty and obtuseness. Plain literal 
teaching would fail to attract them, and so lead to their conversion, which 
latter their very obtuseness stubbornly resists. But what is spoken in a para- 
bolic form captivates and lays hold of the man of limited comprehension, so 
that it does not repel him from his instructor, but rather becomes in him, even 
though not yet apprehended in its abstract meaning, the starting-point of a 
further gradual development of fuller understanding and ultimate conversion. 
There is no reason why de Wette should be stumbled to find that the disciples 
themselves likewise failed to understand the parable, and were therefore on 
the same level as the multitudes ; therefore, he argues, one is at a loss to see 
why Jesus did not favor the latter also with an explanation. But the differ- 
ence between the two cases is, that the disciples, from having been already 
converted, and from their minds having been already stimulated and developed 
by intercourse with Jesus, were just in a position to understand the interpre- 
tation, which the people, on the other hand, were incapable of doing, so that 
it was necessary to present to them the mere illustration, the parable without the 
interpretation, in order to, first, interest and attract them. They had to be 
treated like children, for whose physical condition the only suitable food is 
milk, and not strong meat likewise, whereas the disciples had already shown 
themselves capable of receiving the strong meat as well. Consequently de 
Wette is wrong in conceiving of the matter differently from the representation 
of it given by the evangelists, and which is to this effect : that the object of Je- 
sus in awakening a spirit of inquiry by means of the parables was, that those so 
awakened should come to Him to obtain instruction ; that those who did so are to 
be regarded as the yayrai-in the more comprehensive sense of the word ; and 
that to them the explanation was given and the congratulation addressed ; 
while, on the other hand, Jesus pities the unimpressionable multitude, and 
applies to them the words of Isa. vi. 9 f. (comp. already Miinster), Lastly, 
Hilgenfeld professes to find in this passage indications of the view, censured 
by Strauss as ‘‘melancholy,’* that the use of parables was not intended to aid 
weak powers of comprehension, but in the truly literal sense of the words to 
keep them slumbering. But as regards Matthew, above all, this is out of the 
question, seeing that in ver. 13 he has 67, and not iva. Comp. Keim also, II. 
p. 441. It is otherwise in Mark iv. 12 ; Luke viii. 10. 


Vv. 16, 17. ‘Yuév] stands first for sake of emphasis, and in contrast to 
the stupid multitude. — paxdpsor of 6¢0aAuot| Personification of the faculty of 
sight. Luke xi. 27; Acts v. 9; Isa. lil. 7.— dre BAérovor . . . bre axoter] 
The thought underlying this (and keeping in view vv. 13, 15) may be stated 
thus : your intellect, as regards the apprehension of divine truth, is not un- 
receptive and obtuse, but susceptible and active. — yap] justifies the con- 
gratulation on the ground of the important nature of the matter in question. 
— dixator] Upright, holy men of old.’ — ide G BAémrere, k.7.2.] the pvorhpra 


1 Comp. x. 41, xxiii. 29, also ayvor, xxvii. 52. 


256 THE GOSPEL OF MATTHEW. 


che Pacvdeiac, ver. 11; Heb. xi. 18, 39. The vision of Abraham, John viii. 
56, is foreign to the present passage, from the fact of its not having been 
seen during his life in the body. — The (Aérew in ver. 16 was equivalent to, 
to be capable of seeing, while here it means simply to see. Comp. note on 
John ix. 39. But there is no ground for supposing that Matthew has mixed 
up two distinct discourses (de Wette). 

Ver. 18 f. ‘Yuweic] emphatic, as in ver. 16. — oir] for it is with you pre- 
cisely as has been said in ver. 16. — dxoicare] not : understand (de Wette), 
but : hear, attend to the parable, that is, with a view to see the meaning 
that it is intended to convey. — xavrdc, x.7.A] ananacoluthon. The evange- 
list had perhaps intended to write : ravrd¢ axovovtog — ovviévtog ék THE Kapdiac 
apraser 6 movypoc TO éorappuévov, from the heart of every one that hears without 
understanding, the wicked one, and so on ; but, from the circumstance of 
the épyerac coming in the way, he was led to break off the construction 
with which he had set out.1— 7. Adyov tr. Bao.] the preaching of the Messianic 
kingdom, iv. 28, xxiv. 14; Acts i. 3, xxviii. 31.— ovwévroc] understands, 
not : attends to it, which is grammatically and contextually (év 7% Kapdia) 
wrong (in answer to Beza, Grotius). Mark and Luke say nothing whatever 
here about the not understanding ; it does not appear to have been found 
in the collection of our Lord’s sayings (Aoyia), but to have been added to 
the original narrative by way of explanation (Ewald), its adoption being now 
rendered further necessary owing to the turn given to the sentence by ravrée, 
which latter would otherwise be out of place. The explanation given in 
this addition happens, however, to be correct ; for the word that is not 
understood, that is, not appropriated through the understanding, lies on the 
surface of the heart without being incorporated with the inner life, and 
therefore, in presence of the devil’s temptations, is the more liable to be 
forgotten again, and cast away, so that faith fails to take possession of the 
heart (Rom. x. 10).—oirdé¢ éorw, x.7.A.] a cutting short of a similitude 
before it is fully worked out, that is not uncommon owing to the liveliness 
of the Oriental imagination. Not the man, but the truth taught, is 6 oapeic. 
What is meant is to this effect : This is he in whose case the seed was sown 
upon the road. Others*® interpret : This is he who was sown upon the road. 
Paulus and Vater refer oiroc to 2oyoc. Neither of the explanations harmonizes 
with vy. 20, 22, 28. That the loss of the seed is tantamount to the loss of 
one’s own life, though not stated in so many words (Lange), is implied in 
the nature of the case. 

Ver. 21. Description of one whose mind is so stirred as instantly to wel- 
come the word with joy, but who, when subjected to the testing influence 
of affliction, abandons his faith and relapses into his former condition. 
Such an one is without root in his own inner being, t.e., he is destitute of that 
faith (Eph. iii. 16 f.) which, as a power in the heart, is fitted to maintain 
and foster the life that has been momentarily awakened by means of the 
word. — zpéaxatpoc] temporary, not lasting, not enduring. See Wetstein. 


. 


1 Bornemann in the Stud. u. Krit. 1849, mus, Schmid, Maldonatus, Grotius, Bengel, 
p. 107. Rosenmiiller, Kuinoel. 
2 Euth. Zigabenus, Erasmus, Beza, Eras- 


CHAP. XIII., 22-25. 257 


— 2ivewc 7 dSuwypov] by means of the ‘‘or” the special is added on to the 
general. — cxavdarilera| he encounters a stumbling-block, i.e., a temptation to 
unbelief ; see notes on v. 29, 1.6. Affliction in his case proves a te:pacude 
to which he succumbs. Substantially the same as Luke vili. 13 : agioravr 

Ver. 22. ’Axotwv] is simply to hear, as in all the other cases in which it 
is here used ; and neither, with.Grotius, are we to supply xa? pera yapac 
Zau8avev, nor, with Kuinoel and Bleek, to take it in the sense of admittere. 
—The care for this world, which (vv. 39, 49) extends even to the setting up 
of the promised kingdom (rotrov is a correct gloss), is the care which men 
cherish with regard to temporal objects and temporal affairs, as contrasted 
with the higher concern, the striving after the Messiah’s kingdom (vi. 33). 
Comp. 2 Tim. iv. 10.— ardry] the deceitfulness of those riches, which (per- 
sonified) delude men with their enticements ; not : ‘‘ Delectatio, qua divitiae 
animos hominum afficiunt” (Kuinoel), a classical meaning of ardry (Polyb. 
li. 56. 12, iv. 20. 5) which is foreign to the New Testament, and which in 
this instance is as unnecessary as it is flat. 2 Thess. ii. 10; Heb. ili. 13.— 
axapr. yiv.} not the word (Bengel), but the man ; see ver. 23. 

Ver. 23. "Oc] refers to ax. «. ovv. —For the more correct accentuation, 
cvviov, see note on Rom. iii. 11. — 67] gives significance and prominence to 
the ic : and now this is he who; ‘ut intelligas, ceteros omnes infrugiferos, 
hune demum reddere fructum,” ‘‘ to understand that all the rest being non- 
fruit-bearers, this one at last produces fruit,” Erasmus.’ — Whether we ought 
ipitead oe vey. . .8dide 2 ~', “6d (Beza, Grotius); Or 6 pep...) .) OO. Ss 
6 dé (Bengel, Lachmann, Tischendorf, following the Vulgate), is certainly 
not to be determined by Mark iv. 20, though I should say the latter is to 
be preferred, on account of the solemn emphasis with which, according to 
this reading, the concluding words of the parable itself are repeated at the 
close of the exposition, without their requiring any particular explanation : 
the one (seed, i.e., according to the blending which‘takes place of the 
figure and the person : one of those who hear and understand) brings forth 
a hundred, the other sixty, and so on. 

Ver. 24. Airoic] to the multitude. Comp. vv. 3, 10, 34. — dyowdy] the 
Messiah’s kingdom has become like (see note on vii. 26). The aorist is to be 
explained from the fact that the Messiah has already appeared, and is now 
carrying on His work in connection with His kingdom. Comp. xii. 28.— 
oreipavre (see critical remarks) : the sowing had taken place ; whereupon 
followed the act that is about to be mentioned. It is to be observed, more- 
over, that the kingdom is not represented merely by the person of the sower, 
but by his sowing good seed, and by all that follows thereupon (as far as 
ver. 30) ; but to such an extent is the sower the leading feature in the par- 
able, that we are thereby enabled to account for such phraseology as auoladn 
7 Bacireia . . . avOperw oreipavtt. Comp. ver. 45, xviii. 23, xx. 1. 

Ver. 25. Zlavov] Darnel, lolium temulentum, a grain resembling wheat, 
acting injuriously upon the brain and stomach, and likewise known by the 


1See Hartung, Partikell. I. p. 274 f.; Klotz, ad Devar. p. 404; Baeumlein, Partik. 
p. 106. 


cs 


258 THE GOSPEL OF MATTHEW. 


name of aipa ; see Suidas. In Talmudic language it is called {*1.'—The 
people who slept are men generally (pragmatic way of hinting that it was 
during the night, when no one else would be present), not merely the agri 
custodes (Bengel), or the laborers (Michaelis, Paulus), whom it would have 
been necessary to indicate more particularly by means of dovAo. or some 
similar expression. This little detail forms part of the drapery of the par- 
able (comp. xxv. 5), and is not meant to be interpreted (as referring, say to 
the sleep of sin, Calovius ; or to the negligence of instructors, Chrysostom, 
Jerome ; or to the slowness of man’s spiritual development, Lange), as is 
further evident from the fact that Jesus Himself has not so explained it. — 
avtov 6 éxdp.| his enemy; comp. note on vill. 8—émiorelpery : to sow over 
what was previously sown.* 

Vv. 26 ff. It was only when they were in the ear that it was possible to 
distinguish between the wheat and the tares, which when in the blade re- 
sembled it so much. — ovaAéSwuev| deliberative ; shall we gather together ? — 
éxpiCaonte| ye take out by the root. The roots of tares and wheat are inter- 
twined with each other. — dua airoic| along with them. dua, which is in the 
first instance to be regarded as an adverb (hence dua ctv, 1 Thess. iv. 17, v. 
10), is also used as a preposition by classical writers) which Klotz, ad Devar. 
p. 97 f., denies, though without reason), and that not merely in reference to 
time (xx. 1), but on other occasions, such as the present for example. 

Ver. 30. ’Ev xap@ without the article.*— dycare aita deou.] (See critical 
remarks) : bind them into bundles. For this construction of dfo. with two 
accusatives, considering the resemblance between it and the root of decoy, 
comp. Kihner, II. 1, p. 274. — The explanation of the parable, which latter 
is different from that given in Mark iv. 26 ff. (in answer to Holtzmann, 
Weiss), is furnished by Jesus Himself in ver. 37 ff. It is to this effect. The 
visible church, up till the day of judgment, is to comprise within its pale 
those who are not members of the invisible church, and who shall have no 
part in the kingdom that is to be established. The separation is not a thing 
with which man is competent to deal, but must be left in the hands of the 
Judge. The matter is to be understood, however, in a broad and general 
way, so that it cannot be said at all to affect the right of individual ex- 
communication and restoration. In regard to individuals, there remains the 
possibility (to which, however, the parable makes no reference whatever) : 
‘*Ut qui hodie sunt zizania, cras sint fruamentum,” ‘‘ that they who to-day 
are tares may to-morrow be grain,” Augustine. 

Ver. 31. Xivazc| a herbaceous plant that, in the East, sometimes attains to 
the height of a small tree.*® In Attic Greek it is called varv.° Inasmuch as 
the plant belongs (ver. 32) to the order of the Aayava, it is unnecessary to 
suppose, with Ewald,’ that it is the mustard-tree (Salvadora Persica, Linnaeus) 
that is intended ; comp. in preference the expression devdposdyava.* — AaBdv] 


1 Buxtorf, Lex. Talm. p. 680. 4 Winer, p. 118 (E. T. 147 ff.). 
2 Pind. Nem. viii. 67 ; Theophr. c. pil. iii. 15. © Celsii Hierobd. II. p. 250 ff. 

4; Poll. i. 223. ® Phrynichus, ed. Lobeck, p. 228. 
3 Herod. vi. 188; Soph. Phil. 971, 1015; 7 Jahrb. Il. p. 32 f. 

Polyb. ib. 5. 11, x. 18.1; comp. Wisd. xviii. 5 Theophrastus, x. pl. i. 8. 4. 


Ae MCC HES ets 


CHAP. XIII., 32-35. 259 


a) 


an instance of the usual circumstantiality (comp. ver. 33), but not intended 
to convey the idea of the care with which so tiny a seed is taken into the 
hand (Lange). 

Ver. 32. "O] refers to xéxxo¢ o.var., and owes its gender to the fact of its 
being attracted by the neuter following.’ — pixpérepov| not instead of the 
superlative ; see, however, on note xi. 11. But, inasmuch as this is a pro- 
verbial expression of a hyperbolical character, little need be made of the 
fact that seeds of a still more diminutive kind are to be met with ; comp. 
xvii. 20, and Lightfoot.* — rév Aaydvor] than any other vegetable. — bray dé 
avé., k.7.2.] but when it shall have grown, portrays the extraordinary result 
that follows the sowing of the tiny little seed. The astonishing nature of 
such a result is still more forcibly brought out in Luke xiii. 19 by means of 
dévdpov péya. —katack.| dwell. The interpretation of the word as meaning 
to build nests (Erasmus) is not general enough ; comp. note on viii. 20. 

Ver. 33. Sdrov] TD, one-third of an ephah, a dry measure, and, accord- 
ing to Josephus* and Jerome on this passage, equivalent to one and a half 
Roman bushels. It befits the pictorial style of the passage that it should 
mention a definite quantity of flour ; without any special object for doing so, 
it mentions what appears to be the wsval quantity.* So much the more ar- 
bitrary is Lange’s remark, that three is the number of the spirit. A great 
deal in the way of allegorizing the three cava is to be found in the Fathers. 
According to Theodore of Mopsuestia, they denote the Greeks, Jews,and Sa- 
maritans ; Augustine, Melanchthon suppose them to signify the heart, the 
soul, and the spirit. 

The parable of the mustard seed is designed to show that the great commu- 
nity, consisting of those who are to participate in the Messianic kingdom, 
i.e., the true people of God as constituting the body politic of the future 
kingdom, is destined to develop from a small beginning into a vast multi- 
tude, and therefore to grow extensively ; roiuviov bvtec dAiyov, elc arretpov nvEHS HCA, 
“‘being a small flock, they were increased into a countless one.”° The par- 
able of the leaven, on the other hand, is intended to show how the specific in- 
fluences of the Messiah’s kingdom (Eph. iv. 4 ff.) gradually penetrate the 
whole of its future subjects, till by this means the entire mass is brought 
intensively into that spiritual condition which qualifies it for being admitted 
into the kingdom. 

Ver. 34. Oidiv éAdAer] Kara tov Kapdv éxeivov dniadh, Euth. Zigabenus ; 
comp. Chrysostom. This is further indicated by the imperfect relative (pre- 
viously aorists were being used). The absolute sense in which the words 
are understood by Baumgarten-Crusius and Hilgenfeld is inconsistent with 
historical facts ; nor could Matthew, or Mark iv. 34, have intended the 
words to be so taken without being guilty of the grossest absurdity. This 
in answer no less to Weiss, Holtzmann, Volkmar. 

Ver. 35. The circumstance that, on this occasion, Jesus spoke exclusively 


1 Winer, p. 156 [E. T. 217 ff]. 4 Gen. xviii. 6; Judg. vi. 19; 1Sam. i. 24. 
2 ‘Satis est, in genere verum esse, quod 5 Euth. Zigabenus; Actsi. 15, ii. 41, 47, iv. 
dicit Dominus,”’’ Erasmus. 4, v. 14, vi. 7, xxi. 20; Rom. xy. 19, xi. 25 f. 


3 Antt. ix. 4. 5. 


260 THE GOSPEL OF MATTHEW. 
in parabolic language, was supposed, according to the divine order in history, 
to be a fulfilling! of, and so on. —pogfrov] Asaph, who in 2 Chron. xxix. 
30 is called TINT (LXX. has rov rpoggrov). The passage referred to is Ps. 
Ixxviii. 2, the first half being according to the LXX., the second a free ren- 
dering of the Hebrew text. —épeiyeada:] to give forth from the mouth, Y13, 
employed by Alexandrian Jews in the sense of pronuntiare, Ps. xviii. 2.? 
— kexpuup. ard KataB. Kéop.| 7.€., Ta wvothpia THE Bactdeiac, Rom. xvi. 25. 

Ver. 36. Tyr oixiav] the house mentioned in ver. 1.—¢@pdoov ; comp. xy. 
15. Occurs nowhere else in the New Testament. It denotes speaking in 
the way of explaining, unfolding anything.*? The reading dcacd¢yoov (Lach- 
mann, after B § and Origen once) is a correct gloss. 

Vy. 37, 38. In explaining this parable Jesus contents Himself, as far as 
ver. 39, with short positive statements, in order merely to prepare the way 
for the principal matter with which He has to deal (ver. 40), and thereafter 
to set it forth with fuller detail. There is consequently no ground for treat- 
ing this explanation as if it had not belonged to the collection of our Lord’s 
sayings (Ewald, Weiss, Holtzmann),—for regarding it as an interpolation 
on the part of the evangelist, in advocating which view Weiss lays stress 
upon a want of harmony between the negative points in the parable and the 
positive character of the exposition ; while Hilgenfeld questions the correct- 
ness of this exposition, because he thinks that, as the progress that takes 
place between the sowing and the harvest corresponds with and is applica- 
ble to the whole history of the world, therefore the sower cannot have been 
Christ, but God and Him only,—an objection which has been already dis- 
posed of by the first parable in the series.— The good seed represents the sons 
of the kingdom, the (future) subjects, citizens of the Messianic kingdom 
(comp. note on vili. 12), who are established as such by the Messiah in their 
spiritual nature, which is adapted thereto (6 oveipwv 7d Kakov oréppua éotiv 6 
vidg Tov avbparov, ver. 87). Itis not ‘‘ fruges ex bono semine enatae” (Fritzsche) 
that are intended by 76 6é xatdv orépua, but see vv. 24, 25. — ol viol rov rovypor] 
whose ethical nature is derived from the devil (see ver. 39). Comp. John 
vill. 41, 44; 1 John iii. 8, 10. Not specially : the heretics (the Fathers 
and several of the older expositors). 

Ver. 39. ZuvréAeca tr. aidvoc| not found in any of the other Gospels : the 


1 The passage, however, is not a prophecy 
so far as its historical meaning is concerned, 
but only according to the typical reference 
which the evangelist discerns in it. In the 
original Hebrew it is expressly said wn, 
not in parables, but in a song of proverbs, the 
contents of which, however, though histori- 
cal from beginning to end, “‘ latentes rerum 
Messiae figuras continebat”’ (Grotius), and 
a similar instance of which we meet with 
afterwards in the discourse of Stephen. 
Accordingly, the prophet, instructing and 
warning as he does by means of a typical 
use of history, is looked upon by the evan- 
gelist as the type of Christ speaking in par- 
abolic narratives, and through this medium 


unfolding the mysteries of the completed 
theocracy. In Christ he finds realized what 
the prophet says with reference to himself: 
avotéw, etc., and épevéouar, etc., the antitypi- 
cal fulfilment, though it must be granted 
that in doing soitis undoubtedly the ea- 
pression év mapaBoAats on which he makes 
the whole thing to turn, but that, availing 


_ himself of a freedom acknowledged to be 


legitimate in the use of types, he has em- 
ployed that expression in a special sense, and 
one that is foreign to the original Hebrew. 
2 Lobeck, ad Phryn. p. 63 f. 
3 Plat. Gorg. p. 463 E, Theaet. p. 180 B; 
Soph. Zrach, 158, Phil. 555. 


CHAP. XIII., 40-43. 261 


close of the (current) age (ver. 22), z.e., of the pre-Messianic epoch ; the great 
catastrophe that is to accompany the second coming, and which is to intro- 
duce the Messianic judgment.’— The reapers are angels ; see xxiv. 31; comp. 
John xv. 6. 

Ver. 40. Kaierac] not xataxaiera, but are set on fire. No doubt the tares 
are consumed by fire (ver. 30); still the point of the comparison does not lie 
in their being consumed, but in the fact of their being set on jfire,—a fact 
which is intended to illustrate the everlasting punishment now beginning to 
overtake the wicked in Gehenna. John xv. 6; Matt. xxv. 46.—The wick- 
ed (the oxivdada, ver. 41 ; the cazpd, ver. 47) are connected with the church 
as amere outward institution, but do not belong to the number of its living 
members (to the body of Christ).? 

Ver. 41. Airod . . . aitov] they are His to serve Him whenever He 
chooses to command ; ‘‘majestas filii hominis,” Bengel ; comp. note on viii. 
20. — ovddéFovory éx| pregnant expression equivalent to: colligent et secernent 
ev. —ix tH BaciA. avtod| for the judgment will take place as soon as the earth 
has undergone that process of renovation (xxiv. 29 f. ; 2 Pet. ili. 13) which 
is to transform it into the scene of the Messiah’s kingdom. Moreover, the 
separation about which Jesus here speaks is a separation of persons—of the 
good on the one hand, from the bad on the other, which, again, is the only 
means of likewise effecting a separation between good and bad things. 
Comp. xxiv. 31. Jesus distinguishes only between cxavdaAa and dixao., 
without recognizing any intermediate classes of men (xxv. 32 f.), a view 
which subsequently found its explanation in the doctrine of faith and of 
justification by faith. The question as to whether or not there are various 
degrees of felicity for the righteous, as of punishment for the wicked, is one 
upon which the present passage does not touch. — cxavda2a] stumbling-blocks, 
i.e., men who, through their unbelief and sin, may put temptation in the 
way of others. Comp. xvi. 23.3. For this abstract way of designating indi- 
viduals by means of the characteristic feature in their character, see Kiihner, 
II. 1, p. 10 f. The dvouia is immorality, as in vii. 23, xxiii. 28, xxiv. 12. 

Ver. 42. The furnace (Dan. iii. 6) represents Gehenna, Comp. Rev. xx. 
15. — 6 kAavd dc] see note on viii. 12. 

Ver. 43. Tére] then, when this purging out of all the cxdvdaAa has been 
effected. — éxAdu.] the compound verb, which is used on purpose (fo shine 
orth, to burst into light,‘ and so not to be taken merely as descriptive of 
eternal felicity in its general aspect, but as conveying the idea of a sublime 
display of majestic splendor, of the dééa of the righteous in the future kingdom 
of the Messiah.® Contrast to the fate of the wicked in the furnace of fire. — 
Tov TatTpo¢ av’tav| sweet closing words, full of blessed confidence, xxv. 34. 





14 Esdr. vii. 48; Bertholdt, Christol. p. 39; 
comp. vv. 40, 49, xxiv. 8, xxvili. 20; Heb. ix. 
26, and see note on xii. 32. 

2Comp. Apol. Conf. A. p. 147 f.; Thoma- 
sius, Chr. Pers. u. Werk, TI. 2, p. 370. 

8 Euth. Zigabenus is correct, so far as the 
substantial meaning is concerned, when he 
observes: oxavdada kai movovvtTas Thy avouiav 


Tovs avTovs dvouager, ‘He namesthe same 
persons as stumbling-blocks and workers 
of iniquity.” 

4Xen. Cyr. vii. 1, 2; Plat. Gorg. p. 484 A, 
Rep. iv. p. 485 A. 

5Comp. Dan. xiii. 3; Enoch xxxviili. 4, 
SRK Wg CLV 4 


262 THE GOSPEL OF MATTHEW. 

Vv. 44 ff. IdAcv 6uota] introduces a second illustration of the kingdom of 
the Messiah, by way of continuing that instruction of the disciples which 
began with ver. 36. —év 76 aypo] in the field; the article being generic. 
For cases of treasure-trove mentioned by Greek and Roman writers, consult 
Wetstein. — dv ebpov dvdpuroc Expupe| which some man found and hid (again 
in the field), so as not to be compelled to give it up to the owner of the 
field, but in the hope of buying the latter, and of then being able legitimately 
to claim the treasure as having been found on his own property.’ But the 
most natural way is to regard etpév as the correlative to kexpuuuévw 3 while, 
again, the behavior here supposed would have been a proceeding as singular 
in its character as it would have been clearly dishonest toward the owner 
of the field. — amd tH¢ yapac abtov] axé marks the causal relation,? and avtow 
is not the genitive of the object (over the treasure: Vulgate, Erasmus, Luther, 
Beza, Calvin, Maldonatus, Jansen, Bengel, Kuinoel, Fritzsche), but, as the 
ordinary usage demands, the genitive of the subject: on account of his joy, 
without its being necessary in consequence to read atroi, but airov, as look- 
ing at the matter from the standpoint of the speaker. The object is to in- 
dicate the peculiar joy with which his lucky find inspires him. —imayer x.t.4. | 
Present: the picture becoming more and more animated. The idea embodied 
in the parable is to this effect : the Messianic kingdom, as being the most 
valuable of all possessions, can become ours only on condition that we are 
prepared joyfully to surrender for its sake every other earthly treasure. It 
is still the same idea that is presented in vv. 45, 46, with, however, this 
characteristic difference, that in this case the jinding of the Messiah’s king- 
dom is preceded by a seeking after blessedness generally ; whereas, in the 
former case, it was discovered without being sought for, therefore without 
any previous effort having been put forth. — (yroivt.] with the view of pur- 
chasing such goodly pearls from the owners of them (comp. vii. 6 ; Prov. 
lili. 15, viii. 19, and see Schoettgen). — éva] one, the only one of real worth ; 
according to the idea contained in the parable, there exists only one such. — 
xéxpaxe| the perfect alternating with the aorist (jyépacev) ; the former look- 
ing back from the standpoint of the speaker to the finished act (everything 
has been sold by the merchant), the latter simply continuing the narrative (and 
he bought).* 

Vv. 47 ff. For aiyiatéc, see note on Acts xxvii. 39. —rd xadd and capa} 
the good, i.e., the good fish, such as were fit for use, and the putrid ones 
(comp. note on vii. 17), which, already dead and putrefying, are yet en- 
closed in the cayfvy * along with the others. The men took them out of the 

1 It is mentioned by Bava Mezia f. 28, 2, 
that, in circumstances precisely similar, R. 
Emi purchased a hired field in which he had 
found treasure: ‘“‘ ué pleno jure thesaurum 
possideret omnemque litium occasionem prae- 


cideret,”” “that by full right he might ob- 
tain possession of a treasure and cut off 


that Jesus should take into consideration 
the ethical questions involved in such 
cases.”’ Fritzsche says : ‘‘ quem alivi, credo, 
repertum nonnemo illuc defoderit,”’ ‘* which 
Sound elsewhere, 1 dare say, Many an one 
would hide there.” 

2 xiv. 26; Luke xxiv. 41; Acts xii. 14; 


all occasion of strife.” Paulus, exeg. Handb. 
II. p. 187, observes correctly : ‘‘ That it was 
not necessary, either for the purposes of the 
parable or for the point to be illustrated, 


Kiihner, IT. 1, p. 366 f. 

3 Kiihner, II. 1, p. 144 f. 

4 Large drag-net, Luc. Pisc. 51, Tim. 22; 
Plut. de solert. an. p. 977 F. 


CHAP, XIII., 52-58. 263 


net (fw) and cast them away.—The aorists in vv. 47 and 48 are to be 
understood in a historical sense, not as expressing what was the practice, 
but merely as narrating what took place on the occasion, just as in vv. 44, 
45, 46. —Observe further, that the net encloses fish of every yévoc, é.e., of 
every species (that is, according to the literal meaning, out of every nation) ; 
yet no yévoc, as such, is cast away, but only the putrid fish belonging to 
each yévoc, and that not before the end of the world (in answer to the whole 
Donatist view).—Ver. 50. Closing refrain, as in ver. 42. 

Ver. 52. Tavra rdvra] that which has been addressed to the disciples 
since ver. 36. This vai xipe, this frank acknowledgment, calls forth from 
Jesus a gladsome d:a rovro, as much as to say, ‘‘it is because of such under- 
standing that every one, and so on (such as you are), resembles a house- 
holder, and soon.” But for the understanding in question, this similitude 
would not have been made use of. — ypaupareic] The ordinary conception of 
a Jewish scribe is here idealised and applied to the Christian teacher, comp. 
xxiii. 834. But in order specifically to distinguish the Christian ypauuaretc¢ 
from the Jewish scribes, who were Moses’ disciples (xxiii. 2 ; John ix. 28), 
he is significantly described as padyrevdelc 7H Bard. Tt. oip., t.e., made a 
disciple of the kingdom of heaven. padyrebew tir, to be a disciple of any one 
(xxvii. 57), is here used transitively (discipulum facere alicui).” The king- 
dom of heaven is personified ; the disciples of Christ are disciples of the 
kingdom of heaven, of which Christ is the representative (comp. xii. 28).— 
Kawa kat radad| is on no account to be restricted to any one thing in 
particular, but to be rendered : new and old, i.e., things hitherto unknown, and 
things already known, already taught in former ages, and that in regard both 
to the matterand the manner. Thus the predictions of the prophets, for 
example, belong to the things that are old, the evidences of their fulfilment 
to those that are new ; the precepts of the law are to be ranked among the 
old, the developing and perfecting of them, in the way exemplified by 
Christ in Matt. v., among the new ; the form of parables and similitudes, 
already in use, is to be referred to the old, the Messianic teaching embodied 
in them is to be included under the new. The view that has been much in 
vogue since Irenaeus, Origen, Chrysostom, and Jerome, and which repre- 
sents the words as referring to the Old and New Testament, or to the law 
and the gospel (Olshausen), is a dogmatic limitation. In the dlustration the 
Syoavpé¢ means the chest (ii. 11, xii. 35) in which the householder keeps his 
money and jewels (not the same thing as drojxy) ; in the interpretation it 
means the stores of knowledge which the teacher has at his disposal for the 
purposes of instruction. — é«3aA2e] throws out, thus describing the zeal 
with which he seeks to communicate instruction. Comp. Luke x. 35. 

Vv. 58-58. The majority of more recent critics (Lichtenstein, L. J. p. 
271 ff., de Wette, Baur, Bleek, Késtlin, Holtzmann, Keim) adhere to the 
view, received with special favor since Schleiermacher, that this narrative 
(which, moreover, in Mark vi. 1 ff., comes after the raising of Jairus’ 
daughter) is identical with Luke iy, 16-80, But, in that case, it becomes 


1 Plut. Mor. p. 837 D. 2 Comp. xxviii. 19; Acts xiv. 21. 


264 THE GOSPEL OF MATTHEW. 


necessary to set aside the very precise statements in Luke’s narrative on the 
one hand ; and, on the other, to tamper with the rigid sequence so distinctly 
indicated by Matthew in vv. 53, 54, xiv. 1, as has been done in the most 
awkward way possible by Olshausen (‘‘he came once more to the town in 
which he had been brought up”). It is not without ample reason that 
Storr, Paulus, Wieseler,’ Ewald, have insisted that our passage is not iden- 
tical with Luke iv. 16 ff. What Luke records is an incident that took place 
during the jirst visit of Jesus to Nazareth after the temptation in the wilder- 
ness. The only passage to which this can correspond is Matt. iv. 12, 18, so 
that in Luke we get an explanation of what Matthew means by his xatajurav 
tnv Natapér. How conceivable, likewise, that on two occasions Jesus may 
have been driven from Nazareth in a similar way, so that He would be twice 
called upon to utter the words about the prophet being despised in his 
native place.’ 

Ver. 54. Tarpida aitov] Nazareth, where His parents lived, and where He 
had been brought up, ii. 28. — révev tobr@] TobTw 1s contemptuous * (John vi. 
42, and frequently), and xd%ev is due to the circumstance that the people 
knew all about the origin and outward training of Jesus. John vii. 15, vi. 
41 f. — kai ai dvvdperc| so that in Nazareth also He must not only have taught, 
but must have performed miracles, although not to the same extent, ver. 58. 

Vv. 55 ff. Tov réxrovoc] of the carpenter, which, however, also embraces 
other workers in wood (the cabinetmaker, the cartwright, and such like).? 
In Mark vi. 3, Jesus Himself is spoken of by the people as 6 réx7wv, and cer- 
tainly not without reason ; see note on that passage. — oi adeAgoi aitov] See 
note on xii. 46.—According to the reading ’Iwo74, there was only one of the 
sons of that Mary, who was the wife of Alphaeus, who was certainly of the 
same name, viz., James (xxvii. 56 ; on the Judas, brother of James, see note 
on Luke vi. 16). But if this Mary, as is usually supposed, had been the 
sister of the mother of Jesus, we would have been confronted with the un- 
exampled difficulty of two sisters bearing the same name. However, the 
passage quoted in support of this view, viz., John xix. 25, should, with 
Wieseler, be so interpreted as to make it evident that the sister of Jesus’ 
mother was not Mary, but Salome. Comp. note on John i. 1. — zacaz] there- 
fore hardly to be understood, as some of the Fathers did,° as meaning only 
two.—Observe, further, that in the course of what is said about the rela- 
tives, there is not the slightest indication of their being supposed to be dif- 
ferent from the ordinary inhabitants of the place. —ovx éort rpopytyg . . . v 
Th Tatpide avtov (not abrov) x. év tT. olk. avr. is (John iv. 44) a principle 
founded on experience, which is found to apply to the present case only as 
relatively true, seeing that, under different conditions, the contrary might 
prove to be the case. —The év r. oikig abtov, in his own family (xii. 25), cor- 
responds with John vii, 3, comp. Mark iii, 20, See also the note on xi. 
46-50. 


1 Chronol. Synopse, p. 284 f. 4 See Philo, Cod. apocr.I. p. 868f. ; Justin, 
2“* Nazarethanis priore reprehensione c. Tryph. 88 ; Suicer, Thes. II. p. 1254 f. 
nihilo factis melioribus,”’ Beza. 5 In Philo, Cod. apocr. p. 363. 


8 Xen. Anao. iii. 1. 30. 


NOTE. 265 


Ver. 58. ’Exoincev] In Mark vi. 5, put more definitely thus : 7divato roq- 
cat. This does not include the idea of unsuccessful attempts, but what is 
meant is, that the unwillingness of the people to acknowledge the greatness 
of His person (ver. 55) compelled Jesus, partly on moral (because of their 
unworthiness) and partly also on psychical grounds (because the condition 
of faith was wanting), to make but a limited use of His miraculous power. 


Nore sy AMERICAN EDITOR. 


e 


VIII. 


By the question ‘* Why speakest Thou unto them in parables ?’’ the disciples 
undoubtedly meant to express their feeling that the one they had just heard 
was a dark saying (v. 10), whose meaning must be unintelligible to the multi- 
tude. Christ’s answer shows that His parabolic teaching was intended to be 
the penalty of the people’s unbelief, and yet a penalty which carried in its 
heart a blessing ; for, as the riddle stimulates thought by the awakening of our 
curiosity to know its hidden sense, so the parable, which is for the moment a 
puzzle, rouses the docile disciple to search into the mysteries of the kingdom 
of God. These parables of Christ are so deftly worded, each is so complete in 
itself, each is related by so close a kinship to all the rest, that they are the 
most attractive of the Jessons givenus by Him. Alluding to this double func- 
tion of concealing and disclosing, Von Gerlach compares the parables to ‘‘ the 
pillar of cloud and fire which turned its dark side towards the Egyptians, but 
the light side to the people of the covenant.” Lisco says of them, with great 
beauty : ‘‘ The more frequently and attentively we apply ourselves to consider 
them, whether as a whole or in their separate parts, the more are we filled with 
wonder and astonishment at the perfection of their form and matter. They 
always appear to me like a lovely casket made in the handsomest style, of the 
most precious materials, and embellished with simple yet most attractive or- 
naments ; but when the key is put into our hand, and we open it, and see the 
jewels it contains, these appear to surpass all worth, and make it difficult for 
us to be satisfied with looking on their glory. However attractive in form may 
be the parables of Jesus, and however inviting, when considered only as spec- 
imens of poetic beauty, the truth contained in them is still more glorious, for 
it is the truth which makes blessed, truth leading to divine felicity through 
the hope of eternal life. What Luther said of Scripture in general, that it is a 
garden of God, with many beautiful trees full of the most precious fruit, and 
though he had often already knocked upon the boughs and got much fruit into 
his lap, yet did he continually find new fruit, as often as he sought and knocked 
again—this may be said more especially of its parables, in which is treasured 
up an inexhaustible store of instruction, consolation, warning, and admonition, 
Their meaning is richer than the sea, no one has ever drunk out its fulness ; 
every new consideration of them discovers to us new relations, gives new solu- 
tions, spreads new light over the affairs of the heavenly kingdom.”’! 

Very wisely, we think, Dr. Meyer refrains from indicating any one point in 


1 Biblical Cabinet, ‘“‘ Lisco on Parables,” pp. 21, 22. 


266 THE GOSPEL OF MATTHEW. 


which all the parables of Jesus meet, or, in other words, from specifying a 
common object to which they tend. Krummacher finds this point of union in 
a theocratic purpose—the exhibition prophetically of the progress of the king- 
dom of God. This certainly is true of some, but is not fairly descriptive of 
the whole collection.! Lisco makes the essential point in them all to be com- 
munion with God. ‘‘Sometimes,’’ to carry out this thought, ‘‘ the discourse 
is of the means through which such communion is attainable, as of the word 
of God (in the parable of the sower), sometimes of its worth (as in the treas- 
ure and the pearl), sometimes of the company, brought into that state wherein 
it appears asa church or community in the present world (asin the tares), then, 
again, of the progress of its development (as in the mustard-seed), and, finally, 
in a number of parables, of the spiritual condition and destiny of those who are 
willing to participate in this communion, or have already partaken of it. The 
kingdom of God, in its constitution as a church, in its past and future history, 
in time and in eternity, thal is the great burden in the parables of Jesus.”? All 
this is true, but communion with God is as well the object of the whole scheme 
of divine revelation. In point of fact, most of the attempts to fix upon one 
common object of the parables of Christ have led to a narrowing if not to a per- 
version of their meaning, through false methods of interpretation.® 


1 See “ Trench on the Parables,’ Amer. ed., p. 43. 
2 Biblical Cabinet, ‘‘ Lisco on Parables,’’ pp. 23, 24. 
3 See on this subject, ‘‘ Trench on the Parables of our Lord,” chap. iii. 


CHAP. XIV. 267% 


CHAPTER XIV. 


Ver. 3. Kad ero év gvd.] Lachm., after B &* Curss. : kal év tH dvd, aréGero. 
So also Tisch. 8, though without r7, after 8*. The simple év 77 gv”. is found 
in D, Or. (once), but it is adopted from Mark vi. 17. Lachm.’s reading is all 
the more to be regarded as the original, that azé8ero also occurs once in Origen, 
and that, in restoring the verb that had been omitted, in accordance with 
Mark, the simple Geto, without the preposition (comp. Acts v. 25, xii. 4), 
would most readily have suggested itself. — @:Aimmov] after yvvaixa is omitted 
in D, Vulg. Codd. of the It. Aug., is deleted by Tisch. 7, and only bracketed 
by Tisch. 8. Supplement from Mark, the interpolation : 67: abrjv éyaunoer, 
being derived from the same source. — Ver. 6. yeveoiwy dé ayou.| Lachm. and 
Tisch.: yeveoior dé yevouévoic, after BD L &, Curss, Correctly. The genitive 
was by way of explaining the dative, hence the reading yeveciwy dé yevouévor, 
and then came ayou. (Received text) as a gloss on yevou., which gloss is partially 
found in the case of the dative reading as well (yeveciouc dé dyouévouc, 1, 22, 59). 
—Ver. 9. éAumnfy] Lachm. and Tisch. : Avméeic, omitting the dé after dua, 
according to B D, Curss. and Codd. of It. The reading of the Received text is 
a logical analysis of the participle. — Ver. 12. coua] BC DL &, Curss. Copt. 
Syre" have zraua. Recommended by Griesb., adopted by Lachm. and Tisch. 
8. Taken from Mark vi. 29. — Ver. 13. With Lachm. and Tisch. 8 we ought to 
read dkovcac dé, after BD L Z &, Curss. Verss. Or. ; kai is a mechanical repeti- 
tion. With Tisch. read refoi for met, according to adequate testimony 
(including &). The reading of the Received text is taken from Mark. — Ver. 
14. On the strength of important testimony, 6 "Inooic after éfeAGov (Elz. Scholz) 
is deleted. Beginning of a church lesson. Similarly, in ver. 22, after jvayx. 
Comp. ver. 25, where, in like manner, 6 ’Ijcvve was inserted after adrotc, — én’ 
abroic] Elz.: éx’ avrovc, against decisive testimony. — Ver. 15. Tisch. has otv 
after dzo/., and that only according to C Z 8, 1, 238, Copt. Syr. p. (on the 
margin) Or. (twice) ; but correctly, seeing that ojv might readily drop out in 
consequence of the ON immediately preceding it, as well as from its not being 
found in Mark vi. 36. — Ver. 19. rode yéprovc] The readings rov yoprov (B C* 8, 
Currs. Or., so Lachm. and Tisch. 8) and rdv ydprov (D, Curss.) are to be 
explained from the circumstance that the plural of yépro¢ occurs nowhere else 
in the New Testament. — Aa@év] Elz.: nat AaBdv, against the best and most 
numerous authorities. — Ver. 21. The arrangement : maid, «. yvv. (Lachm.) is, 
as also in xv. 38, without adequate testimony. — Ver. 22. The deleting of 
eviéwe (Tisch. 8), which, no doubt, may have been adopted from Mark, is, how- 
ever, not warranted by testimony so inadequate as that of C* 8 Syrv" Chrys. 
— Ver. 25. d72§e] Lachm. and Tisch. 8. : 746e, after B C** &, Curss. Verss. Or. 
Eus. Chrys. The preposition overlooked in consequence of the attraction not 
having been noticed (comp. the simple épyetac in Mark). — éxi rij¢ Gaddconc) 
Lachm. and Tisch., : én? r)v OdAaccay, after B P AO 8, Curss. Or. The reading 
of the Received text is taken from the parallel passages. — Ver. 26. éxi tiv 


268 THE GOSPEL OF MATTHEW. 


GdAacoav] Lachm. and Tisch. 8 : én rij¢ OaAdoonc, after BC D Te &, Curss. Eus. 
Chrys. Theophyl. Correctly ; the accusative crept in mechanically from ver. 
25, through not noticing the difference of meaning in the two cases. — Ver. 28. 
The arrangement éAeiv rpoc¢ oe (Lachm. Tisch.) is supported by decisive testi- 
mony. — Ver. 29. éAfeiv] Tisch.: kai 7AGev, after B C* (?) Syre™ Arm. Chrys. By 
way of being more definite, since, according to ver. 31, Peter was beside Jesus. 


Ver. 1 f. ’Ev éxeivy t6 Kaipo] See xili. 54-58. The more original narrative 
in Mark vi. 14 ff. (comp. Luke ix. 7-9) introduces this circumstance as well 
as the account of the Baptist’s death, between the sending out and the re- 
turn of the Twelve, which, considering the excitement that had already 
been created by the doings of Jesus, would appear to be rather early. Yet 
Luke represents the imprisonment of John as having taken place much 
earlier still (iii. 19 ff.). —'Hpddyc] Antipas. Not a word about Jesus, the 
Jewish Rabbi and worker of miracles, had till now reached the ear of this 
licentious prince in his palace at Tiberias ; because, without doubt, like 
those who lived about his court, he gave himself no particular concern about 
matters of this sort : he, upon this occasion, heard of Him for the first time 
in consequence of the excitement becoming every day greater and greater. 
—T. akowy "Ijoov, as in iv. 24. 

Ver. 2. Toig raciv avtov] to his slaves (comp. note on viii. 6), who, accord- 
ing to Oriental ideas, are no other than his couwrtiers.* — airéc] indicating by 
its emphasis the terror-stricken conscience : Je, the veritable John. — azo tov 
vexpav| from the dead, among whom he was dwelling in Hades. The sup- 
position of Wetstein and Bengel, that Herod was a Sadducee (erroneously 
founded upon Mark viii. 15, comp. Matt. xvi. 6), is no less inconsistent with 
what he here says about one having risen from the dead, than the other sup- 
position that he believed this to be acase of metempsychosis ;* for he assumes 
that not merely the soul, but that the entire personality of John, has re- 
turned. Generally speaking, we do not meet with the doctrine of transmi- 
gration among the Jews till some time after.* Herod’s language is merely 
the result of terror, which has been awakened by an evil conscience, and 
which, with the inconsistency characteristic of mental bewilderment, believes 
something to have happened—though contrary to all expectation—which, in 
ordinary circumstances, was looked uponas theoretically impossible ; while, 
again, the opinions that were circulating respecting Jesus (Luke ix. 7 f.) 
would suggest, in the case before us, the particular idea to which Herod 
here gives expression. The Pharisaic belief in the resurrection, which was 
not unknown to Herod, became, in spite of himself, the psychological start- 
ing-point. — dia tovro] on this account, because he is no ordinary man, but 
one risen from the dead. — ai dvvauecc] the powers manifesting themselves in 
his miracles. 

Ver. 3. Herodias was the daughter of Aristobulus, son of Herod the Great, 
and of Berenice. She married Herod Antipas, who had become so enamored 


1 Comp. note on ii. 22. ° Grotius, Gratz, von Colin. 
2Comp.1 Sam. xvi. 17; 1 Mace. i. 6, 83 3 4See Delitzsch, Psychol. p. 463 f. [E. T. 
Esdr. ii. 17 ; Diod. Sic. xvii. 36. 545 f.]. 


CHAP. XIv., 4-6. 269 
of her that he put away his wife, the daughter of the Arabian king Aretas.? 
The brother of this Herod, Herod Philip (Mark vi. 17), called by Josephus 
simply Herod, a son of Herod the Great and Mariamne, the high priest's 
daughter, and not to be confounded? with Philip the tetrarch, who was 
Cleopatra’s son, had been disinherited by his father, and was living privately 
at Jerusalem in circumstances of considerable wealth. The aorists are not 
to be taken in the sense of the pluperfect, but as purely historical. They re- 
late, however (Chrysostom : dijyobuevoc obtwe gfow), a statement that has 
been already made in a previous passage (iv. 12), namely, that Herod, in order 
to give a more minute account of the last (and now completed, see on ver. 
13) destiny of the Baptist, seized John, bound him, and so on.t—év rh 
gviaxy| Comp. xi. 2.° What Josephus’ says about Machaerus being the place 
of imprisonment, is not to be regarded as incorrect ;7 but see Wieseler, p. 
244 f., to be compared, however, with Gerlach as above, p. 49 f. On the 
date of John’s arrest (782 vu. c., or 29 Aer. Dion.), see Anger, rat. temp. p. 
195." Otherwise, Keim, I. p. 621 ff.,° with whom Hausrath substantially 
For aréGero (see critical notes), comp. 2 Chron. xviii. 26.” 

Ver. 4 f. Ovx« éeo7.] Because Philip was still living, and had a daughter.” 
For éyew yuvaixa, as expressing matrimonial possession, see note on 1 Cor. y. 
1. Itis probable that Herod only made John’s bold rebuke a pretext for 
putting him in prison ; the real cause, according to Josephus, xviii. 5. 2 f. 


agrees. 


’ 
was fear lest he should be the means of creating an insurrection. — ciyov] 


not : aestumabant (a common but ungrammatical rendering), but : they held 
him asa prophet, z.e., they stood to himas toa prophet. This isin conformity 
with classical usage, according to which éyw twa, with a predicate, ex- 
presses the relation in which a person stands to some other person ; for ex- 
ample, ¢/Aovg airode éyerc:” thou standest related to them as to friends :!3 rai0’ 
bac Exo ao éuév, I stand to thee as to a child ; and see likewise the note on 
Luke xiv. 18 ; Philem. 17. The appended d¢ means : not otherwise than as.™ 

Ver. 6 ff. Tevéova, Birthday celebration. Lobeck, ad Phryn. p. 103 f.; 
Suicer, Zhes. I. p. 746 ; Loesner, Obss. p. 40. Others (Heinsius, Grotius, 
Is, Vossius, Paulus) interpret : a festival by way of commemorating Herod's 


1 Joseph. Antt. xviii. 5. 1, 4. 

2Ewald, Gesch. Chr. p. 51, thinks that 
Mark has fallen into this error, and that the 
omission of the name Philip in Matthew 
and Luke (iii. 19) should be regarded as in- 
tended to correct it. Comp. also Hase, 
Bleek, Volkmar, Keim. No doubt it is 
strange that the two sons of Herod the 
Great should haye borne the name Philip. 
But then this was only a surname, while it 
is to be remembered that Herod had also 
two sons, both of whom were called Anti- 
pater. Besides, the two Philips were only 
half-brothers. See Gerlach also in the Zu- 
ther. Zeitschr. 1869, p. 32 f.; Wieseler, Beitr. 
De ic 
3 Joseph. Anté. xvii. 1. 2, 8. 2. 
4 Buttmann, newt. Gr. p. 173 [E. T. 200]. 


5 For the pregnant use of the év, see 
Kiihner, II. 1, p. 385 f.; Buttmann, p. 283 
[E. T. 329]. 

6 Anti. xviii. 5. 2. 

7 Glockler and Hug, Gutachten, p. 82 f. 

8 Wieseler, p. 288 ff.; and in Herzog’s 
Fincycl. XXI. p. 548 f., also in his Beitr. p. 3 ff. 

® Aer. Dion. 34-35. 

10 Polyb. xxiv. 8. 8 (eis pvAakyr). 

11 Ley. xviii. 16, xx. 21; Joseph. Antt. 
xviii. 5. 1, 2; Lightfoot on this passage. 

12 Xen. Symp. iv. 49. 

13 Hur. Here. fur. 1405. 

14 Herodian, i. 13. 16. 

15 Kriiger, § 57. 3.1 and 2; Kiihner, II. 2, 
p. 995. Similarly also in xxi. 26. Otnerwise 
in Mark xi. 32. 


270 THE GOSPEL OF MATTHEW. 

accession, because the latter is often compared to a birth, Ps. ii. 7; 1 Sam. 
xiii. 1. An unwarranted departure from ordinary usage. Wieseler like- 
wise takes the word as referring to the accession, but improperly appeals, | 
partly to the fact of its being used to denote a celebration in mem- 
ory of the dead (Herod. iv. 26), a jiguwrative sense which only tells 
in favor of owr interpretation, and partly to the Rabbinical ow 80123 
pabn,? where, however, the royal birthdays are likewise meant. No instance 
is to be found in the Greek classics (for the Latin natalis, see Plin. Paneg. 
82).3— 7 Buydtyp tice ‘Hpwd| and of Philip. She was called Salome, and 
married her uncle, Philip the tetrarch.* Her dancing was, doubtless, of a 
mimetic and wanton character.° Wetstein on this passage. Moreover, 
this circumstance of the girl dancing is in keeping with the view that fixes 
the date of this scene as early as the year 29 ; while it is entirely at variance 
with Keim’s supposition, that it occurred in the year 34-35, by which time 
Salome had been long married, and, for aught we know, may already have 
been left a widow ; for which reason Keim considers himself all the more 
justified in ascribing a legendary character to the narrative, though without 
interfering in any way with the historical nucleus of the story, which he 
believes has not been affected by the plastic influence of legend ; while 
Volkmar again declares the whole to be a fabrication. — év 7@ uéow] In the 
centre of the banqueting hall. The subject of jpece is still 7 Svyar. — oer] 
as in Acts xxvi. 19, frequently in the Epistle to the Hebrews, and common 
in classical writers. —xpofiBacdeica] urged, induced, prevailed upon, not : 
instructed (neither is it to be so rendered in Ex. xxxv. 34).°— dde] therefore 
without any delay. —ézi rivax] upon a plate. 

Ver. 9. Aurnteic] he was annoyed, diére Eucdre péyav avereiv avdpa, kai Kivqoat 
mpo¢ picoc éavTow Tov dxAov, ‘* because he was about to put to death a distin- 
guished man, and to rouse the multitude to hatred against himself,” Euth. 
Zigabenus, comp. ver. 5 ; Mark vii. 20. Altogether, he was deeply pained 
at finding matters take this sudden and tragic turn, which is not inconsis- 
tent with ver. 5, but may be accounted for psychologically as arising out 
of that disturbed state of the conscience which this unlooked-for catastrophe 
has occasioned ; consequently, we must not, with Schneckenburger, sup- 
pose (comp. Weiss and Holtzmann) that Matthew has failed to notice 
Mark’s statement that Herodias was desirous to see John put to death. This 
circumstance is involved in what Matthew says in ver. 8.7— 6d roi¢ bpk] 
The ye¥ dp. in ver. 6 represents a series of oaths that had been given, one at 
one time and another at another. — cvvavaxecpévovc] to whom he did not 
wish to appear as perjured. A case of unlawful adhering to an oath, simi- 
lar in its character to what was done by Jephthah. 

Vv. 10, 11 f. Considering that it would require rather more than two days 


1 Comp. Lex rhet. p. 231. 5. 1; Polyb. iii. 59. 2, xxiv. 3.7; Bremi, ad 
2 Avoda Sara i. 3. Aeschin. Ctesiph. 28; Kiihner, ad Xen. Mem. 
3 For the dative of time, see Winer, p. i. 2. 17. 

205 [E. T. 276]. 7 Bengel appropriately observes: “‘ Lat- 
4 See Josephus, Anté. xviii. 5. 4. uerat in rege judicii aliquid,” ‘‘ something 
§ Hor. Od. iii. 6. 21. of discretion lay hid in the king.” 


®See Plat. Prot. p, 328 B; Xen. Mem. i. 


CHAP. XIv., 13, 271 
to return from Machaerus (see note on ver. 3), the fortress on the southern 
frontier between Peraea and the dominion of Aretas, to Tiberias (where 
Antipas was residing), Fritzsche thinks that it is out of the question to 
suppose that the head can have been actwally delivered at the feast ; comp. 
Lightfoot. But this circumstance, helping as it does to Tend a tragic air to 
the whole proceeding, is just one which the reader naturally takes for 
granted, and one which is found to be necessary in order to give unity and 
completeness to the scene;’ so that, with Maldonatus, Grotius, Baumgarten- 
Crusius, Gerlach, Keim, we must suppose the festival to have taken place 
in Machaerus, and not in Tiberias. Not even Wieseler’s view, that the feast 
was held in Julias in Peraea, and that the head was brought thither by 
messengers travelling post-haste, can be said to be in sufficient accord with 
the tragic scenery of the simple narrative. The account in Mark (vi. 25, 
éSavrq¢ 5 Ver. 27, évexydjvar) is unfavorable to such a view, as is also the dde 
in ver. 8 and ver, 11, which plainly implies that the thing was done there 
and then. —év rq ¢vdaxq] therefore in private by the hand of an assassin.? 
—kai £6637 7. Kk. Kai qveyxe T. u. a] the horrible scene in a few simple words. 
—Ver. 12. The disciples, to be near their master, had remained somewhere 
in the neighborhood of the prison, probably in the town of Machaerus 
itself.* 

Ver. 13. Since we find it stated immediately before that «. 220. arfyyevaAav 
7@ "Inood, it is clear that the xa? dxotcac, which is not further defined, can 
only be referred to the arjyyecdav of the preceding verse ;* while the ref- 
erence to ver. 2, so frequent since Chrysostom’s time, is arbitrary, inasmuch as 
Matthew does not so much as hint at it. There is no anachronism here, oc- 
casioned by Mark vi. 31.° Matthew does not show such want of skill in the 
use he makes of Mark ; neither does he go to work in so reckless and con- 
fused a way as Wilke and Holtzmann would have us believe. But the nar- 
rative runs somewhat as follows : (1) Matthew mentions that, at that time, 
Herod heard of Jesus, who was then in Nazareth, and said : This is John, 
and so on ; (2) thereupon he gives an account of the death of John, to 
which reference has thus been made ; (3) and lastly, he informs us in ver. 
12 f. how Jesus came to hear of this death, and how it led to His retiring 
into some solitude or other, to shelter Himself for a little from the persecution 
of Herod, which was probably being directed against Himself as well. 
From this it would appear that it must have been whilst Herod, who had 
just beheaded John, was indulging such dangerous thoughts regarding Jesus 
(ver. 2), that the latter, through hearing from John’s own disciples of the fate 
of their master, so felt the necessity of being upon His guard against Herod’s 
hostility, that He took the precaution to retire lest His own death should 


1 Strauss, I. p. 397. 

2**Trucidatur vir sanctus ne judiciorum 
quidem ordine servato ; nam sontes populo 
omni inspectanti plecti lex Mosis jubet,” 
“a holy man is butchered, without pre- 
serving any order of judicial proceed- 
ings; for the law of Moses orders the 
guilty to be punished in the sight of all the 


people,”’ Grotius. 

8 For mr@ua, a corpse, see Phrynichus, ed. 
Lobeck, p. 375. 

iJerome, Augustine, Euth. Zigabenus, 
Erasmus, Maldonatus, de Wette, Ewald, 
Keim. 

5 Weiss in the Stud. u. Krit. 1861, p. 40 f. 


272 THE GOSPEL OF MATTHEW. 


be precipitated. Comp. iv. 12, xii. 15. It is clear from the shape in which 
the narrative is thus presented, that the beheading of John is to be under- 
stood as having taken place only a short time before the words of ver. 2 
had been uttered, so that the terror that was awakened in Herod’s con- 
science when he heard of Jesus came on the back of his recent crime ; but 
there was no reason why vv. 1 and 2 should have been regarded as a literary 
expedient devised merely for the purpose of introducing John once more 
into the narrative. — éxei¥ev] from the place, where He had been staying 
when the intelligence reached Him ; whether this was still Nazareth (xiii. 
54) or some other locality in Galilee, is determined by év zAoim, according 
to which it must have been a place upon the sea-coast. — ipnpov téxov] accord- 
ing to Luke ix. 10, near to Bethsaida in Gaulonitis, lying within the do- 
minion of Philip the tetrarch. — kav’ idiav].’— reCoi (see critical notes) : by 
land, walking round by the head of the lake. — zéAewv]| of Galilee. 

Ver. 14. ’E&e294r] that is to say, from the solitude into which he had re- 
tired. Jn opposition to ver. 13, Maldonatus and Kuinoel, following Mark 
vi. 34, interpret : owt of the boat. —iorAayy. éx’ abt.] airoic refers not merely 
to the sick (Fritzsche), but, like aitév below, to the dyAoc, which, however, 
became the object of compassion just because of the sick that the people 
had brought with them. Not so in Mark vi. 34. 

Ver. 15 ff. Comp. Mark vi. 35 ff. ; Lukeix. 12 ff. ; John vi. 5 ff. ’Oxiac] 
means, in this instance, the jirst evening, which lasted from the ninth till 
the twelfth hour of the day. It is the second evening, extending from the 
twelfth hour onwards, that is meant in ver. 24.2—7 dpa] the time, i.e., the 
time of the day ; comp. Mark xi. 11. Some, like Grotius, understand : meal 
time ; others (Fritzsche, Kiuffer) : tempus opportunum, sc. disserendi et sa- 
nandi. But the ‘ disserendi” is a pure importation ; and how far the suit- 
able time for healing might be said to have gone by, it is impossible to con- 
ceive. Our explanation, on the other hand, is demanded by the context 
(oiac dé yevou.), besides being grammatically certain.* — éavroic] for we, as 
far as we are concerned, have nothing to give them. — According to John 
vi. 5 ff, it was Jesws who first began to inquire about bread, and that not in 
consequence of the evening coming on. An unimportant deviation, which 
shows that even the memory of an apostle may sometimes be at fault. Of 
greater consequence is the fact that, according to John, Jesus puts the 
question whenever he sees the multitude,—a circumstance made to tell against 
John by Strauss especially ; comp. also Baur and Hilgenfeld. And there 
can be no doubt that this little detail is an unconscious reflection of the 
Johannine conception of Christ, according to which it was but natural to 
suppose that Jesus had Himself intended to work a miracle, and that from 
the very first, so that in John the recollection of the order of proceeding, 
which we find recorded by the Synoptists with historical accuracy, had 
been thrust into the background by the preponderating influence of the 
ideal conception. Comp. note on John vi. 5f. John, on the other hand, 





1‘*Nemine assumto nisi discipulis,’’ Ben- 3 See Raphael, Polyd, ; Ast, Lex. Plat. II. 
gel. p. 580. 
2 Gesenius, 7ves. IT. p. 1064 f. 


CHAP. XIY., 19, 20. 273 


mentions the more precise and original detail, that it was a radapcov who 
happened to have the bread and fish. — dére airoic¢ ipueic gay.|] said in view 
of what the disciples were immediately to be called upon to do ; therefore, 
from the standpoint of Jesus, an anticipation of that request, which the ex- 
pectation of something in the way of miracle was just about to evoke on 
the part of the disciples.’ 

Ver. 19. ’Exi r. yépr.] upon the grass, xiii. 2. —Participle following up on 
participle without conjunctions, and in logical subordination.? — xAdoac] 
The loaves were in the form of cakes, a thumb’s breadth in thickness, and 
about the size of a plate. 3— In saying grace Jesus did what was done by the 
father of a family. In John it is expressed by eiyapiorjoac, because the 
meaning of the grace was the giving of thanks (comp. notes on xxvi. 26 f. ; 
1 Cor. x. 16, xiv. 16) ; Luke again says: ebAdyyoev aitoic, where we have 
the idea of a consecrating prayer, as in the case of the Lord’s supper. 

Ver. 20 f. Tév xkAacu. is independent of 10 epic. (the fragments that were 
over), with which latter also dédexa Kod. wAgperc, twelve baskets full, is in 
apposition. In travelling, the Jews carried small baskets with them to hold 
their provisions and other necessaries.* It is more general * than orupic (xv. 
37; Acts ix. 25). —7pav] they took up, from the ground on which the 
people had been eating. The subject of the verb is the apostles (John vi. 12) ; 
each of the Twelve fills his travelling-basket. But the «Adowara are the 
pieces (comp. ver. 19, kAdoac) into which the loaves had been divided, and 
which had so multiplied in the course of distribution that a great quantity 
still remained over. — yvvax. «x. maid.| occurring frequently in classical 
writers, and sometimes with the order of the words inverted.* But observe 
here the diminutive radiwr, little children, whom their mothers either carried 
in their arms or led by the hand. 


Remarx.— 70 explain away the miracle, as Paulus has done (who thinks that 
the hospitable example of Jesus may have induced the people to place at His 
disposal the provisions they had brought along with them ; comp. Gfrorer, 
Fleiligth. u. Wahrh. p. 171 ff. ; Ammon, L. J. II. p. 217 f.), is inconsistent with 
the accounts of all the evangelists, and especially with that of the eye-witness 
John. Notwithstanding this, Schleiermacher, L. J. p. 234, thought that, even 
on exegetical principles, the plural cyueia in John vi. 26 but (see note on this 
passage) would justify him in declining to rank the incident among the 
miracles ; whilst Schenkel thinks he sees his way to an explanation by suppos- 
ing what is scarcely possible, viz., that Jesus fed the multitude with a rich 
supply of the bread of life from heaven, which caused them to forget their 
ordinary food, though at the same time He devoutly consecrated for their use 
the provisions which they had brought with them, or had managed to procure 
for the present emergency. Weizsiicker likewise leaves the fact, which is sup- 


1 Bengel well observes: wdpmets, vos, signi- Backen. Robinson, Pal. Ill. pp. 40, 293. 


ficanter. ‘“ Rudimenta fidei miraculorum 4 For xéduvos, see Jacobs, ad Anthol. LX. p. 
apud discipulos.” 455. 

2See Stallbaum, ad Plat. Apol. p. 27 A; 5In Xen. Anad. iii. 8. 6, it is used in the 
Kiihner, ad Xen. Mem. i. 1.18; Dissen, ad sense of a dung-basket. 
Dem. de cor. p. 249. 6 Maetzner, ad Lycurg. p. 75. 


3 Winer, Realwérterbuch, under the word 


274 THE GOSPEL OF MATTHEW. 
posed to underlie the present narrative too much ina state of perplexing un- 
certainty ; this element of fact, he thinks, must somehow correspond with the 
symbolism of the miracle, which is intended to teach us that there is no sphere 
in which the believer may not become a partaker of the fulness of Jesus’ bless- 
ing. Keim, adhering above all to the ideal explanation that the bread which 
Jesus provided was spiritual bread, and referring by way of parallel to 
the story of the manna and the case of Elisha, follows the Paulus-Schenkel 
line of interpretation, in conceding a residuum of historical fact, though he 
seems to doubt whether that residuum will be considered worth retaining. 
But to eliminate the element of fact altogether is no less inconsistent with his- 
torical testimony. This, however, has been done by Strauss, who thereupon 
proceeds to account for the narrative, partly by tracing it to some original 
parable (Weiss, I. p. 510 ff.), partly by treating it as a myth, and deriving it 
from the types of the Old Testament (Ex. xvi. ; 1 Kings xvii. 8-16 ; 2 Kings 
iv. 42 ff.) and the popular Messianic ideas (John vi. 30 f.), partly by supposing 
it to belong to the lofty sphere of ideal legend (Ewald, see note on John vi. 12), 
and partly by understanding it in a symbolic sense (Hase, de Wette). Such a 
mode of dealing with this incident is the result of denying the possibility of 
bringing a creative agency to bear upon dead, rather upon artificially prepared 
materials—a possibility which is not rendered more conceivable by having 
recourse to the somewhat poor expedient of supposing that what was done may 
have been brought about by an accelerated natural process (Olshatisen). But 
that such agency was actually brought to bear, is a historical fact so well estab- 
lished by the unanimous testimony of the evangelists, that we must be con- 
tented to accept it with all its incomprehensibility, and, in this case not less 
than in that of the changing of water into wine at Cana, abandon the hope of 
being able to get a clearer conception of the process of the miracle by the help 
of natural analogies. Thesymbolical application, that is, to the higher spiritual 
food, was made by our Lord Himself in John vi. 26 ff. ; but, in doing so, He 
takes the miraculous feeding with material bread as His historical basis and 
warrant. Moreover, the view of Origen, that it was To 76y@ kai TH ebdoyia that 
Jesus caused the bread to multiply, is greatly favored by the fact that the cir- 
cumstance of the thanksgiving is mentioned by the whole four evangelists, 
and above all by Luke’s expression ; elAdynaev aitorc. 


Ver. 22 f. The walking on the sea comes next in order, in Mark vi. 45 and 
John vi. 15 as well.’ Luke omits it altogether. — ei0éoc jvayxace| not as 
though He were already looking forward to some unusual event as about to 


1 Instead of the mere eis 7d repay, ver. 22, mAoiov 75 héegov THs Badaoo. Hv, from which 


Mark vi. 45 specifies Bethsaida, and John vi. 
17 Capernaum. A more precise determina- 
tion without substantial difference. Not so 
Wieseler, Chronol. Synopse, p. 274, who 
thinks that the town mentioned in Mark vi. 
45 was the Bethsaida (Julias) situated on 
the eastern shore of the lake; and that it is 
intended to be regarded as an intermediate 
halting-place, where the disciples, whom He 
sends on before Him, were to await His 
arrival. This view is decidedly forbidden 
by Matt. xiv. 24 (comp. Mark yi. 47): 70 6€ 


it is clear that what is meant in mpoayeuv 
avrov eis To repay is a direct crossing of the 
lake. It is likewise in opposition to John 
vi. 17, comp. with vy. 21, 24. Wieseler’s 
view was that of Lightfoot before him ; it 
is that which Lange has substantially 
adopted, although the constantly prevailing 
usage in regard to the simple eis ro mépar, 
ver. 22 (viii. 18, 28, xvi. 5; Mark iv. 35, v. 1, 
21, viii. 13; Luke viii. 22), should have pre- 
vented him from doing so. 


CHAP. XIV., 24. 275 


happen (Keim); He rather wanted to get away from the excited multitudes 
(who, according to John, had gone the length of wishing to make Him a 
king), and retire into a solitary place for prayer, ver. 23. The disciples 
would much rather have remained beside Him, therefore He compelled them 
(Euth. Zigabenus) ; ed3. #vayx. implies the haste and urgency with which He 
desires to get them away and to withdraw into retirement,—not an outward 
compulsion, but the urgere which takes the form of a command.!— éwe ob . . . 
byAove] literally : wntil He should have sent the multitude away ; and then He 
will come after them. The disciples could only suppose that He meant to 
follow them upon foot. Comp. note on John vi. 24, 25. —7rd époc] the moun- 
tain that was close by. See on v. 1. «a7 idiav belongs to avéBy ; ver. 13, 
xvii. 1. — diac] second evening, after sunset ; ver. 15. 

Ver. 24 f. Mécov] Adjective ; with more precision in John vi. 19. At 
first the voyage had proceeded pleasantly (767), but they began to encounter 
a storm in the middle of the lake. — Bacawf6u] not dependent on 7 : being 
plagued by the waves ; vivid picture. —retapry gvAaky]| tpwi, t.e., in the early 
morning, from three till somewhere about six o’clock. Since the time of 
Pompey, the Jews conformed to the Roman practice of dividing the night 
into four watches of three hours each ; formerly, it consisted of three watches 
of four hours each.? — ar7Ave_e rpic ait. | He came away down from the mountain 
togotothem. Attraction.2—According to the reading : repur. él tyv YaAaccav 
(see critical notes): walking over the sea ; according to the reading of the 
Received text : 7. é. r7j¢ Yataoone : walking on the sea. According to both 
readings alike, we are to understand a miraculous walking on the water, but 
not a walking along the shore (éxi r. Jad., on the ground that the shore may 
be said to be over the sea,* as Paulus, Stolz, Gfrérer, Schenkel are disposed 
to think ; this view is absolutely demanded by the character of the incident 
which owes its significance to this miraculous part of it, by the solemn stress 
that is laid on the repurar. éxi r. Had, by the analogy of the repueraryoev éxt 
7a idara in ver. 29, by the ridiculous nature of the fear of what was supposed 
to be an apparition if Jesus had only walked along the shore, by the arj2e_ 
mpo¢ avtov¢ in ver. 25, as well as by the fact that, if Jesus had been on the 
shore,® then the disciples, who were in the middle of the lake, forty stadia 
in breadth, with the roar of the waves sounding in their ears, could not 
possibly hear what He was saying when He addressed them. It remains, 
then, that we have here a case of miraculous walking on the sea, which least 
of all admits of being construed into an act of swimming (Bolten); but 
neither are we to try to explain it by supposing (Olshausen) that, by the ex- 
ercise of His own will, our Lord’s bodily nature became exempted, for the 
time being, from the conditions of its earthly existence ; nor should we at- 
tempt to render it intelligible by the help of foreign analogies (the cork- 
footed men in Lucian. Ver. hist. ii. 4 ; the seeress of Prevost ; the water- 


1 Kypke, I. p. 286f.; Hermann, ad Zur. 3 Hermann, ad Viger. p. 891 ff.; Bernhardy, 
Bach. 462). Comp. Luke xiv. 23. p. 463. 
2 See Wetstein and Krebs, p. 39 f.; Winer, 4 Comp. Xen. Anabd. iv. 3. 28; Polyb. i. 44. 


Realwérterbuch, under the word Nachitwa- 4; 2 Kings ii. 7: Dan. viii. 2; John xxi. 1. 
chen ; and Wieseler, Synopse, p. 406 f. 5 Strauss, II. p. 170. 


276 THE GOSPEL OF MATTHEW. 


treaders, and such like), but, as being akin to the miracle of the stilling of 
the tempest (iv. 35 ff.), it should rather be examined in the light of that 
power over the elements which dwells in Christ as the incarnate Son of God. 
At the same time, it must be confessed that it is utterly impossible to deter- 
mine by what means this miraculous walking was accomplished. From a 
teleological point of view, it will be deemed sufficient that it serves to form 
a practical demonstration of the Messiahship of Jesus, a consideration (comp. 
ver. 33) which was no less present to the minds of the evangelists in con- 
structing their narratives. The credibility of those evangelists—among 
whom is John, whose personal experience lends additional weight to his tes- 
timony—must prove fatal, not only to any attempt to resolve our narrative 
into a mythical sea story (Strauss, who invokes the help of 2 Kings ii. 14, vi. 
6, Job. ix. 8, and the legends of other nations), or even into a docetie fiction 
(Hilgenfeld), but also to the half and half view, that some event or other, 
which occurred on the night in question, developed (Hase) into one of those 
genuine legendary stories which serve to embody some particular idea (in this 
instance, the walking on the water, Job ix. 8). In the same way Baum- 
garten-Crusius, on John, I. p. 234, regards a case of walking on the sea, 
recorded by John, as the original tradition ; while Weisse, p. 521,’ avails 
himself of the allegorical view ; Bruno Bauer, again, here as elsewhere, pushes 
negative principles to their extreme limit ; and Volkmar sees reflected in 
the narrative Paul’s mission to the Gentiles. Weizsiicker and Keim likewise 
assume, though with more caution and judgment, the allegorical standpoint, 
the former being disposed to regard the interposing of Jesus with His help, 
and the power of faith in conquering danger, as constituting the essence of 
the whole ; Keim again being inclined to see in the story an allusion to the 
distress and desolation of the church waiting for her Lord, and not know- 
ing but that He may not come to her help till the very last watch in the 
night (xxiv. 43 ; Mark xiii. 35),—an idea which, as he thinks, is indebted 
in no small degree to Job ix. 8, where God is represented as treading on the 
waves of the sea. But even this mode of interpretation, though in accord- 
ance, it may be, with the etter, cannot but do violence to the whole narrative 
as a statement of fact.’ 

Ver. 26 ff. ’Ex? ti¢ daddoone (see critical notes) : upon the sea. There, just 
at that spot, they saw Him walking as He was coming toward them over the 
sea (ver. 25). Observe the appropriate change of cases. For genitive, comp. 
Job ix. 8. wepiratov . . . éxt Bardoonc.* id’ tdatoc Badifovra.*— pavracpua] 
They shared (Luke xxiv. 37) the popular belief in apparitions :° yuydv oKcoerd7 
davracpara, ‘‘ the shadowy appearances of souls.’*—Ver. 27. 2AdA. abr.) azo 
Tie Gwvae OnAov éavTov rovet, Chrysostom. — Vv. 28-31 are not found in any of 
the other gospels, but their contents are entirely in keeping with Peter’s 
temperament.” — 3Aérwr] not : as He perceived, but : as He saw ; for, when 
on the sea, He was in immediate contact with the manifestations of the storm. 





1 Comp. Schneckenburger, erst. kan. Ev. 5 Plat. Phaed. p. 81 D. 
p. 68. ® Hur. Hec. 54; Lucian, Philops. 29; Wisd. 
2 Comp., besides, the note on John vi. xvii. 15. Comp. the nocturnos Lemures in 
16-21. Horace, /p. ii. 2. 209. 
3 Lucian, Philops. xiii. 76 mavtaxyod Sepuos kK, ael TaY addAwy 


4 Ver. hist. ti. 5, al. mpornday, Chrysostom. 


CHAP. XIV., 31-36, 20% 
— katarovriteoSac] ;* namely, by the influence of Christ’s power, for which in- 
fluence, however, he became unreceptive through doubt, and accordingly 
began to sink. 

Ver. 31 f. Hic ri édicr.]? For eic ri, wherefore? comp. xxvi. 8.8 — iuBavtwv 
avtov] According to John, Jesus did not go up into the boat, but the disci- 
ples wanted to take Him on board. <A difference that may be noted, though 
it is of but trifling importance. See note on John vi. 21. —éxdéracev].* It 
became calm. Anthol. vii. 630 : 4 waKxpy Kar’ éuov dvordoin xordce, ‘*my great 
difficulty of sailing will abate,” and see Wetstein. 

Ver. 33. Ocod vidc] the Messiah. See note on iii. 17. The impression re- 
corded in the text was founded, so far as the people were concerned, upon 
the miraculous walking on the sea itself, and partly upon the connection which 
existed, and which they recognized as existing, between the calming of the 
storm and the going on board of Jesus and Peter. oi év 7 7/0/16 are not the 
disciples (Hilgenfeld, Schegg, Keim, Scholten), but those who, besides 
them, were crossing in the boat, the crew and others. Comp. oi av pao, Vill. 
27. By means of an expression of this general nature they are distinguished 
from the vadyrai (ver. 26), who had hitherto been in question.® Mark omits 
this concluding part of the incident, and merely records the great astonish- 
ment on the part of the disciples. As it stands in Matthew, it is to be re- 
garded as connecting a traditional amplification with the episode of Peter, 
which that evangelist has embodied in his narrative, but yet as containing 
nothing improbable, in so far as it makes it appear that the outburst of as- 
tonishment was so great that it expressed itself in the acknowledgment of 
our Lord’s Messiahship, especially as it is to be borne in mind that the mi- 
raculous feeding of the multitudes (John vi. 14, 15) had taken place but so 
short a time before. Moreover, this is, according to Matthew, the first time 
that Jesus was designated the Son of God by men (iii. 17, iv. 3, viii. 29). 
According to John (i. 50), He had already been so styled by Nathanael ; in 
the present instance He received the designation from those who, as yet, 
were not of the number of His disciples. 

Ver. 34. Comp. Mark wi. 53 ff. Ty Tevvyc.] that beautiful district of 
Lower Galilee, stretching along the border of the lake, and measuring thirty 
stadia in length by twenty in breadth. ° 

Ver. 36. Summary statement, as in iv. 24. —apexdd.] descriptive imper- 
fect. —xpaorédov] See note on ix. 20. They wanted merely to touch Him, as 
in ix, 21. — dvecb9noav] were completely saved,” so that they quite recovered 
from their ailments, and that, according to the analogy of the other miracles 
of healing, just at once. Hilgenfeld is wrong in supposing that this took 
place ‘‘ without the medium of faith ;” as a matter of course, faith was im- 
plied in their very rapaxaieiv, 


1“Pro modo fidei ferebatur ab aqua,” 
“according to the measure of his faith 
he was borne up from the water.” (Bengel). 

2d.ati mp@Tov péev evdappnoas, vatepov Sé 
edeiAtagas 3; “‘ wherefore were you at first 
courageous, but afterwards terrified?’ 
Euth. Zigabenus. 

5S Wisd. iv. 17; Sir. xxxix. 17, 21; Soph: 


Tr. 408, Oed. C. 528, and Hermann’s note. 

4 Comp. Herod. vii. 191. LXX. Gen. viii. 1. 

5 Grotius limits the meaning too much 
when he says: ‘‘ipsi nautae.” 

6 Josephus, Antt. iii. 10. 8, the el Guiweir 
of the present day ; Ewald, Gesch. Chr. p. 
234; Furer in Schenkel’s Bibellex. II. p. 324. 

7 Xen. Mem. ii. 10, 2; Luke vii. 3. 


278 THE GOSPEL OF MATTHEW. 


CHAPTER XV. 


Ver. 1. oi] is deleted by Lachm. and Tisch. 8, after B D 8, Curss. Or. But 
how readily might the article have been overlooked, seeing that, in this passage, 
it might well appear superfluous, as rather in the way, in fact! Had it been 
adopted from Mark vii. 1 (whence, according to well-nigh the same testimony, 
is derived the arrangement ap. x. ypaupu., followed by Tisch. 8), it would have 
been put before ypauy.— Ver. 4. évereiAato Aéywv] Fritzsche, Lachm. : elev, 
which Griesb. likewise approved, after B D Te, 1, 124, and several Verss. and 
Fathers. Taken from Mark vii. 10.— Ver. 5. kai ob uy Tyjon] Lachm. and 
Tisch. 8: ob uw) Tyujoe, after BC D Te 8 (which has tion), Curss. Verss. and 
Fathers. The omission of «ai is by way of simplifying the construction. But 
the future has so much testimony in its favor, besides that of B C D, etc., that 
(with Tisch.) it must be preferred. In what follows Lachm. has deleted } r)v 
untépa avtov (after B D 8 Syr™"), Omitted in consequence of homoeoteleuton. 
—Lachm. Ver. 6. rv évtoAjy]. : Tov Adyov, after BD N** Verss. and Fathers ; 
Tisch. : tov véuov, after C Te 8* Curss. Ptol. The lastis correct ; 7. évrod. is from 
ver. 3, t. Ady. from Mark vii. 13. — 6 Aadg obroc] Elz. Scholz : éyyifer por 6 Aadc obto¢ 
T@ oTOuaTt aiTov kai, against B D L Te 8, 33, 124, and many Verss. and Fathers, 
From the LXX.— Ver. 14. ddyyoi eios tupdot tvdAGv] Numerous variations ; 
Lachmn.: rupdoi eiow édnyoi tu¢4ov. So L Z N8**, Curss. and many Verss. and 
Fathers, and supported also by B D, 209, Syre", which latter have merely rugAoi 
elo odnyoi,! where tugAdv has been displaced by the rvgAdéc immediately follow- 
ing. Nevertheless, we must prefer to retain the reading of the Received text, 
which has still strong testimony in its favor, besides being defended by Tisch. 
The reading of Lachm. is an unsuccessful attempt to amend the style. — Ver, 
15. tavtnv] deleted by Lachm. and Tisch. 8, after B Z &, 1, Copt. Or., but it 
may have been omitted all the more readily from the fact that Mark vii. 17 has 
no demonstrative, and because the parable does not immediately precede. — 
Ver. 16. ’Ijootc] with Lachm. and Tisch., and on the strength of important tes- 
timony, is to be deleted as being a common supplement. — Ver. 17. ota] 
Fritzsche, Lachm. and Tisch. : ov, after B D Z, 33, 238, Syr. Syre™™ Aeth, Arm. 
It. Vulg. Altered in conformity with Mark vii. 19.— Ver. 22. éxpadyacev 
aitw] Lachm, : éxpafev (on the margin: éxpagev), after B D &** 1; Tisch. 8: 
éxpasev, after Z 8* 13, 124, Or. Chrys. But of the two words xpaéevv is far more 
generally used in the New Testament (xpavydfew occurs again in Matthew only 
in xii. 19), and was further suggested here by ver. 23. Air, although having 
rather stronger testimony against it, is likewise to be maintained ; for, with the 
reading éxpavy., it proved to be somewhat in the way, and hence it was either 
omitted, or interpreted by means of déricw airov (D, Cant.), or placed after 
Aéyouoa (Vulg. and Codd. of It.). — Ver. 25. xpocexdvncer] Elz. : mpocexvver, which 
Fritzsche, Lachm. Scholz, Tisch. likewise read, after Griesb. had approved 


1N*: Odnyol ciory tuddAot. 


CHAP. XV., 1-3. 279 


of the aorist, and Matthaei had adopted it. The greatest amount of testimony 
generally is in favor of the aorist ; the greatest amount of the oldest testimony 
(including Curss. B D &*, though not C), in favor of the imperfect ; the latter 
is to be preferred, partly just because it is better authenticated, and partly be- 
cause the transcribers were more used to the aorist of tpooxuy. — Ver. 26. obk éore 
xaAdv] Fritzsche, Lachm. and Tisch. : otk éeoru, only after D and a few Verss. and 
Fathers, also Orig. Correctly ; the reading of the Received text is from Mark 
vii. 27. — Ver. 30. Instead of tod ’Incot we should read avrod, with Lachm. 
and Tisch., according to important testimony. — Ver. 31. For Aahoivtac, B, 
Aeth. and a few Curss. have axovorvrac. Defended by Buttmann in the Stud. u. 
Krit. 1860, p. 348. It istaken from xi. 5. — For édééacav, Tisch. 8 reads éddgalov, 
only after L &, Curss. — Ver. 32. jyépac] Elz. : juépac, against decisive testimony. 
Correction. — Ver. 35 f. éxéAevoe . . . AaBwv] Lachm. and Tisch. 8 : rapayyetdac 
To byAw avar. é, T. y. EAaBev (and Kai before evyap. below), after B D &, Curss. 
Or: An attempt to amend the style with the help of expressions taken from 
Mark. — For fdwxe, Tisch. 8 has édidov, after B D, Curss. Chrys. Taken from 
Mark viii. 6. — Ver. 39. avé@n] Elz. Schulz, Scholz, Lachm. Tisch. 8 : évéSn, 
only after B %, Curss. Correction, because éuf. sic tr. TA. happens to be the 
common form of expression ; viii. 23, ix. 1, xiv. 32. D has év@aiver. 


Ver. 1. The three sections of ch. xv., having as their respective subjects 
the washing of hands (vv. 1-20), the woman of Canaan (vy. 21-31), and the 
feeding of the four thousand (vv. 82-39), occur elsewhere only in Mark (vii. 
8), whom Matthew partly abridges and partly supplements. —rére] when 
He was staying in the country of Gennesareth. — oi a76 ‘Iepoo. yp. (see crit- 
ical notes): the scribes who belonged to Jerusalem, and had come from that 
city (Mark vii. 1). Well-known attraction of the preposition with the 
article.} 

Ver. 2. apddoarc].2 The Jews, founding upon Deut. iv. 14, xvii. 10, for 
the most part attached greater importance to this tradition than to the writ- 
ten law.? They laid special stress upon the traditional precept, founded on 
Ley. xv. 11, which required that the hands should be washed before every 
meal (érav dprov ioSiwow, arendering of the Hebrew on DR). Jesus and 
His disciples ignored this rapddocu as such. — tov rpeoBur.| which had been 
handed down from the men of olden time (their forefathers). It is not the 
scribes that are meant (Fritzsche), nor the elders of the nation (Bleck, Schegg), 
but comp. Heb. xi. 2. It is the wise men of ancient times that are in view. 
Observe, moreover, the studied precision and peremptory tone of the ques- 
tion, which has something of an official air about it. The growing hostil- 
ity begins to show itself in an open and decided manner. 

Ver. 3. Kaé] also, implies a comparison between the tyet¢ and of padyrai 
cov; that is to say, the rapaBaivew is acknowledged to be true of both 
parties, the only difference being in the matters in which the transgression 
is exemplified.® — dia r. rapdd. tu.] which you observe. Notice how the 


1 See Kiihner, IT. 1, p. 473 ff., and ad Xen. MN DID DDI. Comp. Schoettgen. 


Mem. iii. 6. 11. Comp. Acts xxi. 27; Col. iv. 4 See Lightfoot, Schoettgen, and Wet- 
16, al. stein. 
2 dypados diSacxadia, Hesychius. 5 Klotz, ad Devar. p. 636. 


3 Hence, Beracoth f. 3.2: 77239 DDN 


280 THE GOSPEL OF MATTHEW. 


one question is met with another in the same style, thereby rendering the re- 
ductio ad absurdum only the more telling. Luther appropriately remarks 
that ‘‘ He places one wedge against the other, and therewith drives the first 
back.” 

Ver. 4. Ex. xx. 12, xxi. 17. —riua] involves the idea of a practical man- 
ifestation of reverence in the form of kind deeds, ver. 5. — Vavdrw redcvr. | 
nv NN, the meaning of which (he shall certainly die, be executed) has not 
been exactly hit by the LXX. in the phrase Savdrw reA., though it is in con- 
formity with Greek idiom: He shall end (ii. 19) by death (execution, Plat. 
Rep. p. 492 D, and very frequently in classical writers).* 

Ver. 5 f. Adpov] se. gor, [2 Pa gift, war’ éZoxqv, namely, to God, i.e., to the 
temple.’ Vulgate, Erasmus, Castalio, Maldonatus connect dépov with 
Ogerndic : a temple-offering, which will be given by me, will bring a blessing to 
thee. The conjunctive, however, is clearly independent of éév. Chrysos- 
tom observes correctly : ddpév éort robo 7H Ve@, 6 édece EE Euov OGEANSFvat Kad 
ov divaca AaBeiv, ‘‘this is a gift to God, whatsoever thou wishest to be 
profited by me and art not able to attain.” — There is an aposiopesis after 
agedy dnc, Whereupon Jesus proceeds in His discourse with kai ov uy tyuho. 
But your teaching is: ‘* Whoever will have said to his father: It is given to the 
temple, whatever thou wouldest have got from me by way of helping thee” (the 
Jews, of course, understood the apodosis to be this : he is not bound by that 
commandment, but the obligation is transferred to his Corban). And (in conse- 
quence of this vow) he will certainly not be honoring.* Some, however, post- 
pone the aposiopesis till the close, and understand xa? ob pu?) tyfo. as forming 
part of what is supposed to be spoken by the Pharisees in their teaching : 
But whosoever says . . . and does not honor . . . (he is not liable to punish- 
ment). So Fritzsche. But this is not in keeping with usage as regards oi 
#4 ; nor is it in itself a probable thing that the Pharisees should bave said 
quite so plainly that the honoring of parents might be dispensed with. 
Others, again, reject the aposiopesis, and regard kai ob 7) Ty. ete. as an 
apodosis, taking the words, like the expositors just referred to, as forming 
part of what is understood to be spoken by the Pharisees : ‘‘ whoever says 
.. . heisnot called upon, in such cases, to honor his parents as well.” Such, 
after Grotius, is the interpretation of Bengel, Olshausen, Bleek.* Accord- 
ing to this view, cai would be that of the apodosis® in a relative construc- 
tion.® But ob jy ty. does not mean : he need not honor, but : he assuredly 
will not honor ; or, as Ewald and Hofmann’ explain it, he shall not honor, 
—which direct prohibition from the lips of such wily hypocrites as those 
Pharisees, is far less conceivable than the prudent aposiopesis above 
referred to.—More frequently dgedeiodai te tx twog*® with ind, mapa, ard. 


1See Lobeck, Paral. p.523 ; Koster, Hrldut. 6 Baeumlein, Partik. p. 146. 
p. 53. 7 Schriftbew. II. 2, p. 391. 
See Lightfoot and, in general, Ewald, 8 For adedctobai tu Ex Trvos, comp, Thue. vi. 
Alterth. p. 81 ff. 12.2: a@hedndy te ex THS apx7s, *‘ would be 
3 Comp. Kiuffer, de gwijs aiwv. notione, p. benefited in any respect by his command,”’ 
52 f.,and Beza, de Wette, Keim. Lys. xxi. 18, xxvii. 2; Aesch. Prom. 222; 
* Comp. Winer, p. 558 [E. T. 750, note]. Soph. Aj. 533. 


5 Klotz, ad Devar. p. 636. 


CHAP. XV., 7-11. 281 
The opposite of it is : CyuodoIai te éx te 3.’ For the passive with accusative 
of the thing, see Kiihner, II. 1, p. 279 f. — kai jxvpdcare| and you have thereby 
deprived of its authority. jxvp is placed first for sake of emphasis, and is 
stronger than rapafaivere in ver. 38. That such vows, leading to a repudia- 
tion of the fifth commandment, were actually made and held as binding, 
is evident from Tr. Nedarim v. 6, ix. 1.°—Ver. 6 is a confirmation, and not 
a mere echo, of what is said in ver. 3. 

Ver. 7 ff. Katéc] admirably, appropriately characterizing. — rpoedjr. | has 
predicted, which de Wette unwarrantably denies to be the meaning of the 
word in the present instance, understanding zpog. in the sense of the in- 
spired utterance generally. Jesus regards Isa. xxix. 13 (not strictly in ac- 
cordance with the LXX.) as atypical prediction, which has found its fulfilment 
in the conduct of the scribes and Pharisees. — waryv dé] dé denotes a continua- 
tion of the matter in hand ; and paryv indicates, according to the usual ex- 
planation, that their cé8eo9a is attended with no beneficial result (2 Mace. vii. 
18, and classical writers), produces no moral effect upon their heart and life, 
because they teach as doctrines the commandments of men. But seeing that 
the yarn oé3ec8a: consists of mere lip-service in which the heart plays no 
part, thus according with the idea involved in éroxp:rai,—and inasmuch as 
diddoxovrec, ete., is evidence that such is the nature of the service, the inter- 
pretation : sine causa, found so early as in the Vulgate, is better suited to 
the context. Their céBecda of God is meaningless,* because they do not 
teach divine, but human doctrine, the consequence of which is that the 
céBec9ac has no motive principle in the heart, where, on the contrary, 
human interest takes the place of the fear of God.* For the opposite of 
such worship, consult John iv. 24.* — There is no Hebrew word correspond- 
ing to warn in the above quotation from Isaiah ; probably the text made use 
of by the LXX. contained a different reading. — évrddy. avdp.] promulgating 
as doctrines, precepts of a merely human origin ; comp. Col. il. 22. 

Ver. 10.° During the discussion the 6y20¢ had been standing in the back- 
ground ; He invites them to come near. 

Ver. 11. Kooi] makes common, profanes (ob), comp. 4 Macc. vii. 6, 
nowhere found in classical writers ; in the New Testament, in Acts x. 15, 
xi. 9, xxi. 28; Heb. ix. 13; Rev. xxi. 27. What Jesus has in view at 
present is not legal, but moral defilement, and which is not produced (1 
Tim. iv. 4) by what goes into the mouth (food and drink, as well as the 
partaking of these with unwashed hands), but by that which comes out of 
it (improper language). So far as can be gathered from the context, he is 
not saying anything against the Mosaic regulations relating to meats, though 
one cannot help regarding what he does say as so applicable to these, as to 
bring into view the prospect of their abrogation as far as they are merely 





1Dem. lii. 11. abFKev, Os avidtous, Tpemer Sé TOV Adyov mpds TOV 
2 Joseph. c. Ap. i. 22. bxAov, ds a€toAoywrepor, ** Having stopped the 
° Temere, comp. Soph. Aj. 634, and Lo- mouths of these and put them to shame he 

beck’s note, Ast, Lex. Plat. IL. p. 285. sent them away asincurable ;. but he directs 
4 Comp. the pararos dpyoxeca of Jas. i. 26. his discourse to the crowd, as more wor- 
5 See Apol. Conf. A., pp. 206, 256. thy,” Euth. Zigabenus. 


6 Exeivous méev emictowicas Kal KaTavoxvvas 


282 THE GOSPEL OF MATTHEW. 


ceremonial,’ and, as a consequence of this latter, the triumph of the idea 
which they embody, 7.e., their fulfilment (v. 17). Observe, further, that it 
is meat and drink only in themselves considered, that he describes as matters 
of indifference, saying nothing at present as to the special circumstances in 
which partaking of the one or the other might be regarded as sinful (excess, 
offences, 1 Cor. viil., and so on). See ver. 17. 

Ver. 12. Ilpocea.] Matthew does not say where? According to Mark 
vii. 17, this took place in the house. — riv Adyov] Fritzsche and many more 
take this as referring to vv. 38-9. It is to understand it, with Euth. Ziga- 
benus, as pointing to the saying in ver. 11 (Paulus, de Wette, Baumgarten- 
Crusius, Bleek). For this, addressed as it was to the multitude, must have 
been peculiarly displeasing to the Pharisees ; and dxotaavrtec tov Adyov would, 
on any other supposition than the above, be deprived of its significance as - 
stating the ground of offence. 

Ver. 13. The correct interpretation is the ordinary one (being also that 
of Ewald and Keim), according to which gvreéa is taken as a figurative way 
of expressing the teaching. The fact of Jesus having attacked their teaching, 
in ver. 11, had given offence to the Pharisees. Consequently He now ex- 
plains why it is that He does not spare such teaching : every doctrine, He says, 
that is not of God, that is merely human in its origin, will pass away and perish, 
as the result, that is, of the Messianic reformation which is in the course of 
developing itself. Nothing is said about the Pharisees personally (whom 
Chrysostom supposes to be included in what is said about the teaching) till 
ver. 14. This in answer to Fritzsche, Olshausen, de Wette, Hilgenfeld, 
Bleek, who find in the words a prediction of the extirpation of the Pharisees 
(‘‘characters of this stamp will soon have played out their game,” de 
Wette). What is expressed jiguratively by means of raca gureia, Fv ovK epbTev- 
cev 6 mathp ov, is the same thing that, in ver. 9, is designated literally as 
SiWackariac ivradduata avd porov. — On dvreia, planting, i.e., in this instance : 
something planted,* where, however, it is not used with regard to false teach- 
ing, but with reference to false teachers. In classic Greek the form is 
gvTevua, OY puTdv. 

Ver. 14. “Agere avtotc] Let them alone, dismiss them from your thoughts ! * — 
In the application of the general saying : rv@Adc dé rupAdv, etc., the falling 
into a ditch (cistern, or any other hole in the earth, as in xii. 17) is to be 
understood as a figurative expression for being cast into Gehenna. These 
blind teachers, whose minds are closed against the entrance of divine truth 
(comp, xxiii. 16; Rom. ii. 19), are with their blind followers hopelessly 
lost !—Observe what emphasis there is in the fourfold repetition of rupAoi, 
etc. The very aeme of Pharisaic blindness was their maintaining that they 
were not blind, John ix. 40. 

Ver. 15. ‘0 Iérpoc] differs, though not materially, from Mark vii. 17. — 


1 Comp. Keim, and Weizsicker, p. 463. 4 Comp. Soph. Phil. 1043 (1054): adere yap 
2 Plat. Theag. p. 121 C; Xen. Cec. vii. 20, avrov, unde mpodWavanT err, “now leave him 
>big, dl there, and do not lay hand on him.” ‘‘ In- 


3 Comp. Ignatius, ad Philad. IIT. ad Trail. dignos esse pronuntiat, quorum haberi 
aI, debeat ratio,’’ Calvin. 


CHAP. XV., 16-21. 283 


resentation, an apophthegm.'— radryv] It was the saying of ver. 11 that 
was present to Peter’s mind as having given occasion to the words that had 
just fallen from Jesus. It is just that same Adyoc which, according to ver. 
12, had given offence to the Pharisees. But the explanation of it which 
is now furnished by Jesus is of such a nature as to be by no means self- 
evident. 

Ver. 16. ’Axu7v] in the sense of adhue (frequently met with in Polybius), 
belongs to the Greek of a later age.” — xai iueic] even you, although you are 
my regular disciples. 

Ver. 17 ff. Oirw voeire, «.7.4.] Do you not yet understand that, and so on, not- 
withstanding all that I have already done to develop your minds ?—Food 
and drink are simply things that pass into the stomach to be digested there, 
and have nothing in common with man’s spiritual nature, with his reason, 
his will, and his affections and desires (kapdia, the centre of the whole in- 
ner life, see note on xxii. 87). Notice the contrast between ei¢ tHv KolAiav 
(abdominal cavity, see note on John vii. 38) and é« t7¢ xapdiag.—Ver. 19. 
Proof of what is said in ver. 18: for the heart is the place where immoral 
thoughts, murders, adulteries, and so on, therefore where inward and out- 
ward sins, are first conceived, and from which they pass into actual trans- 
gressions. Accordingly, it is that which comes out of the heart, and ex- 
presses itself by means of the mouth (ver. 18), which defiles the man as a 
moral being. The opposite case, in which the heart sends forth what is 
good, presupposes conversion.—The plurals denote different instances of 
murder, adultery, and so on.*— BAaconu.] 2.¢., against one’s neighbor, on 
account of the connection with wevdou. Comp. note on Eph. iv. 31. 

Ver. 21. ’Exeidev] See xiv. 34. —aveydpyoev] He withdrew, to avoid being 
entrapped and molested by the Pharisees. Comp. RA ON Mv. 3. — ele 7a 
uépn| not: towards the districts, versus (Syr. Grotius, Bengel, Fritzsche, 
Olshausen), for the only meaning of cic that naturally and readily suggests 
itself is: into the districts (ii. 22), of Tyre and Sidon. This, however, is 
not to be understood as implying that Jesus had crossed the borders of 
Palestine and entered Gentile territory, which is precluded by the words of 
ver. 22: ddr. dpiov éx. éeASovca, but as meaning, that he went : into the 
(Galilean) districts which border upon the precincts of Tyre and Sidon. Comp. 
note on Mark vii. 24, according to which evangelist Jesus does not pass 
through Sidon till afterwards, when proceeding farther on His way (vil. 
81). This in answer to Chrysostom, Theophylact, Euth. Zigabenus, de 
Wette, Arnoidi, Bleck, Schenkel, whose expedient of supposing that Jesus 
betook Himself to this Gentile valley, not for the purpose of teaching, but 
to make Himself acquainted with the feelings of the people who lived there 


mapdBoa4] in this instance vin, a saying embodied in some figurative rep- 


1 Etym. M.: aiveynaradyns Aoyos, 6 moAAot some hidden meaning.’”* Comp. note on 


A€yovae SyTHMua, Eupatvov wEv TL, OVK avTover dé 
mavtws dpAov 6 ard TOY pyuaTwr, add’ Exo EvToS 
Sidvoray Kekpusmevyny, “an enigmatical say- 
ing, which many calla searching, displaying 
something, yet what is not altogether plain 
of itself from the words, but having within 


on xiii. 3: dpacov, asin xill. 36. 

2 Phrynichus, p. 123, and Lobeck’s note. 

3 Kiihner, II. 1, p. 15 f.; Maetzner, ad 
Lycurg. p. 144 f.), and render the language 
more forcible (Bremi, ad Aeschin. p. 326. 


284 THE GOSPEL OF MATTHEW. 


(Schenkel), may be pronounced to be as arbitrary as the supposition ‘that 
He only wanted (Calvin) to give praeludia quaedam of the conversion of 
the Gentiles. 

Ver. 22. Xavavaia] Several tribes of the Canaanites, “133, who were 
the original inhabitants of Palestine, went ‘and settled in the north, and 
founded what was subsequently known as the Phoenician nation.’ Light- 
foot on this passage. —ée/9ovca] She crossed the frontier into the contig- 
uous territory of the Jews, where Jesus happened to be. According to 
Paulus, the woman came out of her house ; according to de Wette, Bleek : 
From some place nearer the centre of the country. Both views are in oppo- 
sition to the terms of our passage, which plainly state where she came out 
from. — vié Aav.] She so addresses Jesus, because, from living in the neigh- 
borhood of the Jews, she was familiar with their Messianic expectations, 
and with the Messiah’s title, as well as with the Messianic reputation of 
Jesus. Looking to what is said in ver. 26, she cannot be supposed to have 
been a proselyte of the gate. The Gentiles also. believed in demoniacal 
possession. — é2éyodv pe]. ‘‘Suam fecerat pia mater miseriam filiae,” ‘‘ The 
pious mother had made the misery of her daughter her own,” Bengel. 

Ver. 23. At first a silent indication, and then an express intimation of His 
disinclination to favor her. — aréAvoov aithy] send her away, that is, with her 
request granted.*—Thus they begged Jesus ; very frequently in the New Testa- 
ment (in Matthew, only on this occasion ; in Mark, only in vii. 26 ; in Luke 
and John, very often ; in Paul, only in Phil. iv. 3; 1 Thess. iv. 1, v. 12 ; 
2 Thess. ii. 1), and contrary to classical usage, though according to the 
LXX.° épwrdw is used in the sense of to beg, to request. It is not so with re- 
gard to éreputdw. See note on xvi. 1. — dre Kpager, «.7.2.] so importunate is 
she. 

Ver. 24. Those words are addressed to the disciples (comp. note on x. 6) ; 
the answer to the woman comes afterwards in ver. 26.—It is usually supposed 
that what Jesus had in view was merely to put her confidence in Him to the 
test (Ebrard, Baur, Schenkel, Weiss) ; whilst Chrysostom, Theophylact, 
Euth. Zigabenus, Luther, Gléckler, assert that His aim was to furnish her 
with an opportunity for displaying her faith. But the moral sense protests 
against this apparent cruelty of playing the part of a dissembler with the 
very intention of tormenting ; it rather prefers to recognize in our Lord’s 
demeanor @ sincere disposition to repel, which, however, is subsequently con- 
quered by the woman’s unshaken trust (Chrysostom : xa/jv avacyvrtiav). 
Ewald appropriately observes how, on this occasion, Jesus shows His great- 
ness in a twofold way : first, in prudently and resolutely confining Himself 
to the sphere of His own country ; and then in no less thoughtfully over- 
stepping this limit whenever a higher reason rendered it proper to do so, 
and as if to foreshadow what was going to take place a little farther on in the 
future.—It was not intended that Christ should come to the Gentiles in the 
days of His flesh, but that He should do so at a subsequent period (xxviii. 


1 Winer, Realwérterbuch. tomed to send away (suppliants).”’ 
2Bengel says well: ‘Sic solebat Jesus = RW, see Schleusner, Zhes. IT. p. 529. 


dimittere,”’ ‘‘In this wise Jesus was accus- 


CHAP. XV., 26, 27. 285 


19), in the person of the Spirit acting through the medium of apostolic 
preaching (John x. 16 ; Eph. ii. 17). But the difficulty of reconciling this 
with viii. 5, xi. 12, on which Hilgenfeld lays some stress, as being in favor 
of our present narrative, is somewhat lessened by the fact that, according to 
Luke vii. 2 ff., the centurion was living in the heart of the people, and 
might be said to be already pretty much identified with Judaism ; whereas 
we have a complete stranger in the case of the woman, before whom Jesus 
sees Himself called upon, in consequence of their request, ver. 23, strictly to 
point out to His disciples that His mission, so far as its fundamental object 
was concerned, was to be confined exclusively to Israel. Volkmar, indeed, 
makes out that the words were never spoken at all ; that their teaching is 
of a questionable nature ; and that the whole thing is an imitation of the 
story of Elijah and the widow of Zarephath (1 Kings xvii.); while Scholten, 
p. 213, regards it merely as a symbolical representation of the relation of the 
Gentile world to the kingdom of God, and which had come to be treated as 
a fact. 

Ver. 26. Jt is not allowable (see critical notes) to take (sumere, circumstan- 
tial way of putting it, not : to take away) the bread belonging to the children 
and cast it to the dogs,—a general proposition for the purpose of expressing 
the thought : J must not allow the Gentiles to participate in my blessings, be- 
longing as they do only to the people of Israel (the children of God, Rom. ix. 
4). Jesus speaks ‘‘ex communi gentis loquela potius quam ex sensu suo” 
(Lightfoot) ; for it was the practice among the Jews to designate heathens 
(and subsequently, Christians also) as dogs.' For the diminutive, see note 
on ver. 27. In this passage it is intended to mitigate the harshness of the ex- 
pression. 

Ver, 27. Na/, as in xi. 9, 26, confirms the whole statement of Jesus in ver. 
26 (not merely the appellation of dogs, Theophylact, Euth. Zigabenus, 
Erasmus, Maldonatus) ; and xa? yap means, as everywhere in the New Testa- 
ment, and even to a far greater extent among classical writers (who use it 
but rarely in the sense of namque,—«ai consequently is connective), for 
even.? It givesareason for the vai ; but it is quite according to rule to regard 
7a Kuvdpia as the expression to which xai is meant to give prominence. Conse- 
quently the passage would run thus : Yes, Lord, Thou art right in what Thou 
sayest, for even the dogs eat of the erumbs, and so on ; or, to express it nega- 
tively (with ovdé yap) : for even the dogs are not sent away empty, and so on. 
That is to say, this ca/, so far as can be seen from the context, cannot be in- 
tended to serve any other purpose than to suggest a comparison between the 
kvvdpia and the réxva, so that the passage may be paraphrased as follows : 
Thou art right, Lord ; for not merely the children are filled with bread at the 
family-meal, but—so richly is the table spread—even the dogs receive their 
share, inasmuch as they eat of the fragments, and so on. It would therefore 
be but the more unseemly to take the children’s bread and cast it to the dogs, 
so as possibly to leave the former unfed. But in thus justifying her vai, xipve, 





1See Lightfoot and Wetstein, likewise 2 See especially, Ktihner, II. 2, p. 855. 
Eisenmenger, entdeckt. Judenth. I. p. 713 ff. 


286 THE GOSPEL OF MATTHEW. 


the woman seeks to suggest the inference to our Lord that He might yet 
venture to give her that which is hinted at in those ywyia with which the 
xuvapia have to be contented. Of course by this she means a share of His 
abundant mercy, after the wants of Israel have been fully supplied. Follow- 
ing Grotius and Kuinoel, de Wette explains incorrectly : For it is even usual 
Sor the dogs to get nothing but the fragments. In that case we should have ex- 
pected to find : kai yap ard rév yuyiwr écViet, x.7.2. Fritzsche (comp. Bleek, 
Schegg) is likewise wrong when he explains thus : Yes, Lord, it is allowable 
to give the bread to the dogs, for, and so on. As against this view we have 
not merely vai, which can only be taken as a confirming, a justifying of 
what Jesus had said, not simply the ignoring of kad yap, which it would in- 
volve, but also the ‘‘repugnandi audacia,” which is not to be excused in 
consideration of the «ipie, and the meaning itself, which would certainly 
not bear out the idea of a contradiction on the part of the woman. But 
if there is one thing more than another that must not be associated with the 
tender language of this woman, it is the appearance of anything like con- 
tradiction. Finally, all interpretations are wrong which wotld necessitate 
our having 42/4 instead of cai yap (Chrysostom, Luther, Vatablus, Gléckler, 
Baumgarten-Crusius).—The reason why we find Jesus, ver. 26, and conse- 
quently the woman also, ver. 27, making use of the diminutive xvvdpia (a 
classical term),’ is because His idea is that of a family-meal, inconnection with 
which it was not unnatural to think of the little houwse-dogs that ran about 
under the table.? The plural rév xvpiwv may be ascribed to the fact that, 
in what she says, the woman is understood to be stating what is matter of 
general experience. 

Ver. 28. ’Ard tHe Gpac éx.] See note on ix. 22.—The miracle is one of heal- 
ing from a distance, as in viii. 13, John iv. 46 ff., and is to be regarded 
neither as an allegory of Jesus’ own composing (Weisse, I. p. 527), which 
came subsequently to be looked upon as the record of a miracle, nor as 
being a mere case of the miraculous prediction of the future.* 

Vv. 29 ff. Mapa rv 344. r. Tad.) according to Mark vii. 31, the eastern 
shore. — 76 époc] the mountain just at hand. See notes on v. 1, xiv. 22. — 
kvAdovc] deformed, lame, without specifying further ; but the word is used 
not merely with reference to the hands or arms (comp. as evidence to the 
contrary, the well-known nickname of Vulcan: xvAZorodiwv, ‘‘crook-footed”), * 
but also to the feet. —éppuav] The flinging down is to be taken, not as 
indicating the careless confidence (Fritzsche, de Wette, Bleek), but rather 
the haste of the people, in consequence of so many sick being brought to 
Jesus.° The reference to the helplessness of the sick (Baumgarten-Crusius) 
would be suited only to the case of the ywoi and KvAAoi. — rapa tr. rédac] 
for as rpooxvvoivrec it behoved them to prostrate themselves before Him. — 
Ver. 31. rév Sed "Icp.] who shows His care for His people by communicat- 
ing to them, through Jesus, such extraordinary blessings. ‘Icp. is added 


1 Plat. Huthyd. p.298D; Xen. Cyr. viii. 4. 73. 
20, although discarded by Phrynichus, p. 3 Ammon. Z. J. II. p. 277. 
180. 4Hom. Z. xviii. 371, xxi. 331. 
2 Comp. tpamegies xktves, Hom. J. xxiii. 5 Comp. Er. Schmid, Bengel. 


CHAP. XV., 32, 33. 287 


in the consciousness of the advantages they possessed over the neighboring 
Gentiles. 

Ver. 32. In this second instance of feeding the multitude, and which is 
likewise recorded in Mark viii. 1 ff. (and that in a more authentic form), 
Jesus takes the initiative, as in John vi. 5 ; not so in Matt. xiv. 15. — jyépae 
zpeic]| because they have remained with me, it is now three days, and, and so on. 
For this elliptical way of inserting the time in the nominative, see Winer, p. 
523 [E. T. 704].1—xal ov« éxovor, x.7.4.] for in the course of the three days 
they had consumed the provisions they had brought along with them. 

Vv. 33 ff. See note on xiv. 15 ff. — juiv] ‘‘ Jam intelligebant discipuli, suas 
fore in ea re partes aliquas,” Bengel. — ore] not atelic particle (de Wette), 
but what is meant is : such a quantity of bread as will be sufficient for their 
wants, and soon. The use of dove after tocoiro¢ in a Way corresponding to 
this is of very frequent occurrence (Plat. Gorg. p. 458 C).? Notice the 
emphatic correlation of rocoito. and tocotrov.—The perplexity of the dis- 
ciples, and the fact of their making no reference to what was formerly 
done under similar circumstances, combined with the great resemblance 
between the two incidents, have led modern critics to assume that Matthew 
and Mark simply give what is only a duplicate narrative of one and the same 
occurrence (Schleiermacher, Scholz, Kern, Credner, Strauss, Neander, de 
Wette, Hase, Ewald, Baur, Kostlin, Hilgenfeld, Holtzmann, Weiss, Weiz- 
sicker, Volkmar, Keim, Scholten) ; while Wilke and Bruno Bauer maintain, 
though quite unwarrantably, that in Mark the account of the second 
instance of miraculous feeding is an interpolation ; and Weiss, on the other 
hand, is of opinion that this evangelist has constructed his duplicate out of 
materials drawn from two distinct sources (1865, p. 346 f.). As a conse- 
quence of this duplicate-hypothesis, it has been found necessary to question 
the authenticity of Matt. xvi. 9 f., Mark viii. 19. The whole difficulty in 
connection with this matter arises chiefly out of the question of the dis- 
ciples, and the fact of their seeming to have no recollection of what took 
place before,—a difficulty which is not to be got rid of by reminding us of 
their feeble capacities (Olshausen), but which justifies us in assuming that 
there were actually two instances of miraculous feeding of a substantially 
similar character, but that (Bleek) in the early traditions the accounts came 
to assume pretty much the same shape, all the more that the incidents them- 
selves so closely resembled each other. — Ver. 34. iyidia] Observe the use 
of the diminutive on the part of the disciples themselves (‘‘extenuant appa- 
ratum,” Bengel) ; the use of iy#iac, on the other hand, in the narrative, ver. 
36.—Ver. 35. keZetev tue] occurs nowhere else in the New Testament, 
though frequently in Homer and later writers.*—Ver. 387. Seven baskets full 
is in apposition with rd cepioc. 7. kaou., as in xiv. 20. — orvpic is the term 
regularly employed to denote a basket for carrying provisions when on a 
journey, sporta.* The seven baskets corresponded to the seven loaves, ver. 


1 Buttmann, neut. Gr. p. 122 [E. T. 189] ; 3 Plat. Rep. p. 896 A. See Bornemann in 
Fritzsche, ad Mare. p. 310 f. the Sdchs. Stud. 1843, p. 51. 
2 See Sturz, Lex. Xen. IV. p. 320; Kiihner, 4 Comp. Arr. Zp. iv. 10. 21; Athen. vill. p. 


II. 2, p. 1003. 365 A; Valckenaer, Schol. I. p. 455. 


288 THE GOSPEL OF MATTHEW. 


34; the twelve baskets, xiv. 20, to the twelve apostles. — ywpic yuvair. k. 
ao. | See note on xiv. 21. 

Ver. 39. The village of Magdala (Josh. xix. 38 ?) is not to be regarded as 
situated on the east (Lightfoot, Wetstein, Cellarius), but on the west side of 
the lake, where now stands the Mohammedan village of Mejdel.' This situ- 
ation likewise corresponds with Mark vii. 21. Comp. note on ver. 29. It 
is well, however, to take note of the reading Mayaddv (B D & Syre™ Syr. in 
this instance ; similarly Lachmann, Tischendorf; comp. Erasmus and 
Grotius), or Mayeddv (Vulgate, It., Jerome, Augustine), which unknown 
name might readily enough have been supplanted by one rendered more . 
familiar on account of its connection with Mary Magdalene. In C M, Curss, 
the final syllable is still retained (Maydaddv). According to Ewald, Maga- 
dan, or Magedan, refers to the well-known town of Megiddo. But this latter 
was too far inland,’ for it would seem, from what is stated in the text (avéBy 
cic TO TA. Kal 7Avev), that the place meant must have been somewhere on the 
shore, and one admitting of being approached by a boat. Mark viii. 10 
calls it Dalmanutha. 


1 See Gesenius on Burckhardt, II. p. 559; 2 Robinson, III. p. 413 f.; Furer in Schen- 
Buckingham, I. p. 404; Robinson, Pal. III. kel’s Bibellen. 
p. 530. 


CHAP. XVI. 289 


CHAPTER XVI. 


Ver. 3. ioxpitai] omitted before rd wév in C*D L A, Curss. Verss. Aug. De- 
leted by Lachmann (who has «ai instead, only after C**) and Tisch. Correctly ; 
borrowed from Luke xii. 56.—In accordance with important testimony, Lachm. 
and Tisch. have correctly deleted tov mpodytov, ver. 4 (comp. xii. 39), as also 
avrov, ver. 5. — Ver. 8. éAdBete] Lachm.: éyere, after B D &, Curss. Vulg. It., 
and other Verss. (not Or.). Correctly ; ¢Ad3. was more likely to be derived 
mechanically from ver. 7 than éyere to have been adopted from Mark viii. 17. 
Had the latter been the case, we should likewise have found éyoyev in ver. 7. 
— Ver. 11. dprov] Scholz, Lachm. Tisch.: aptwv, which Griesb. likewise ap- 
proved, in accordance with a preponderance of testimony, The sing. would 
naturally come more readily to the transcribers, and that on account of the mate- 
rial rather than the numerical contrast.—For zpooéyeww, B C* L 8, Curss. Verss. 
Or. have: mpocéyete Jé (D, Curss. and Verss., however, omitting the dé). Cor- 
rectly adopted by Fritzsche, Lachm, Tisch. The infinitive, as well as the 
omission of dé, originated in the reference of the words not having been under- 
stood. — Ver. 12. tov dprov] Tisch. 8: tav Papicaiwy k. Laddove., only after N* 
33, Syrce’ ; Lachm. has tév aprwr, which, however, is not so well supported as 
in ver. 11 (B L 8**), besides having the appearance of being simply conformed 
to this verse. — The reading of Tisch. 8 is somewhat of a gloss. — Ver. 13. pr] 
is omitted after tiva in B S and several Verss. and Fathers ; in C it is found 
after A2éy. Deleted by Fritzsche and Tisch., bracketed by Lachm. Omitted 
because, from the circumstance of r. vidv r. avp. following (otherwise in Mark 
and Luke), it seemed superfluous and out of place. — Ver. 20. droreiAato] Orig. 
already found ézeriuycev in Codd, So Lachm. after B* D, Arm. Taken from 
Mark viii. 30, Luke ix. 21, for diacréA2zw occurs nowhere else in Matthew. —o 
Xptotéc] Elz., after numerous and important Codd. (also C &**): “Ijcove 6 
Xpiotéc. But ‘Iycovc is omitted by very important authorities, and, as it is out 
of place in the present connection, the transcriber must have inserted it me- 
chanically. — Ver. 23. wov ei] BC &, 13, 124: ef éuov (so Lachm. Tisch. 8), or ei 
pov. D, Marcell., in Eus. Vulg. It. al. : ei éuoi (so Fritzsche), With such a want of 
unanimity among the authorities, the reading of the Received text cannot be 
said to havea preponderance of testimony, while the variations turn the scales 
in favor of ei éuov, — Ver. 26. ddedeitar] Lachm. Tisch. : o¢eAnfzjceva, after B 
L 8, Curss. Verss. Or. Cyr, Chrys. Altered to be in conformity with the verbs 
in the future that precede and follow. Comp. also Mark viii. 36, 37.— Ver. 28. 
tov ade éoTétwv] Elz. : tov Ode éoryxdtov, after K M II. Fritzsche: rov dde 
éorarec, after Ev. 49. Both are to be rejected, owing to the testimony being 
too inadequate. Scholz and Tisch. 7: dde éotdrec, after EK F G AV XT A, 
Curss. No doubt nov dde éordérov is supported by the preponderating testi- 
mony of BCDLSU 8, Curss. Or. Ephr. Chrys. Epiph. Theodoret, Damase., 
and adopted by Griesb. Lachm. Tisch. 8 ; still it is clearly taken from Mark ix. 
1, Luke ix. 27. It therefore remains that GJe éor@rec is the correct reading. 


290 THE GOSPEL OF MATTHEW. 

Ver. 1 ff. Comp. Mark viii. 11 ff. Not aduplicate of the incident re- 
corded in xii. 88 (Strauss, de Wette, Bruno Bauer, Schneckenburger, Volk- 
mar, Weizsiicker, Bleek, Scholten), but a second demand for a sign, and that 
from heaven, in which respect it is distinguished from the first. With 
regard to the alliance between Pharisees and Sadducees, supposed by some to 
be utterly improbable (de Wette, Strauss, Weiss, Scholten), it is sufficient 
to say, with Theophylact, xdv roic déywacr diioravto apicaior Kai Laddovkaior, 
GAAd ye KaTa Xpiorov cvurvéovor’ onueiov dé éK TOV ovpavod CyTovory, EddKOvY yap, 
ére Ta Ext THE YRC onueia aT SauoviKAe Suvvawews Kai év BeeAleBovdA yivovrat, 
“Although the Pharisees and Sadducees were at variance in their dogmas, 
yet they conspired together against the Christ : they seek a sign from 
heaven, for they thought that the signs upon the earth were from demoniac 
power and in Beelzebub.” In the unbelieving hostility with which they 
are animated, they demand of Him the very highest sign which the Messiah 
would be expected to give (xxiv. 29 f. ; Joel iii. 3 f.), intending thereby to 
have Him put to the test, but thinking, all the time, that it would be 
beyond His power to comply with their demand. — éxypéryoav] Their chal- 
lenge was put in the form of inguiry.—The compound ézeporav never 
means: to request, to beg; see note on xv. 23.—Their questions had refer- 
ence to such a sign, by way of Messianic credential, as, coming from heaven, 
would be visible to their outward eye. — ériWeiEa| spectandum praebere, John 
Ti eedtch 

Vv. 2, 3 f.1—eidia] clear weather! An exclamation in which it is not 
necessary to supply éo7a, except, perhaps, in the way of helping the gram- 
matical analysis, as also in the case of ofuepov yeyuov (stormy weather to- 
day /). For the opposite of eidia and yexwov, comp. Xen. Hell. ii. 3. 10 : év 
evdia yeluava Towovoww. —orvyvalov] being lowering. See note on Mark x. 22. 
—rd rpécwrov|?—ra d& onueia tov Kapov] the significant phenomena con- 
nected with passing events, the phenomena which present themselves as 
characteristic features of the time, and point to the impending course of 
events, just as a red sky at evening portends fine weather, and so on. The 
expression is a general one, hence the plural tov xapov 3 so that it wasa 
mistake to understand the oyueia as referring to the miracles of Christ (Beza, 
Kuinoel, Fritzsche). Only when the reproach expressed in this general 
form 7s applied, as the Pharisees and Sadducees were intending to apply it, 
to the evisting xarpéc, do the miracles of Christ fall to be tneluded among the 
signs, because they indicate the near approach of the Messiah’s kingdom. 
In like manner the fulfilment of Old Testament prophecy, such as was to be 


1The whole passage from owas on to 
ov Svvacde, ver. 3, is omitted in BV XT, 
Curss. Codd. in Jerom. Syreur. Arm. Or. (?), 
while in Eit ismarked with an asterisk. 
Tisch. 8 encloses itin brackets. The omis- 
sion is certainly not to be explained on the 
physical ground (Bengel) that these signs of 
the weather are not applicable to every 
climate, but from the fact that a similar 
saying does not happen to be found in the 


corresponding passage in Mark. Lightfoot, 
p. 873: ‘* Curiosi erant admodum Judaei in 
observandis tempestatibus coeli et temper- 
amento aéris.’”” Babyl. Joma f. 21. 8; 
Hieros. Taanith f. 65. 2. For Greek and 
Roman testimonies relative to the weather 
signs in our passage, see Wetstein. 

2**Omnis rei facies externa,’’ Dissen, ad 
Pind, Pyth, vi. 14, p. 2738, 


CHAP. XVI., 5-7. 291 


traced in the events that were then taking place (Grotius), was to be re- 
garded as among the signs in question, as also the Messianic awakening among 
the people, Matt. xi. 12 (de Wette, Baumgarten-Crusius). According to 
Strauss, the saying in vv. 2, 3 is inconceivable. But the truth is, it was pe- 
culiarly in keeping with the thoughtful manner of Jesus, if, when a sign 
From heaven was demanded, He should refer those demanding it to their 
own practice of interpreting the appearances of the sky, so as to let them see 
how blinded they were to the signs that already evisted. A similar saying 
is found in Luke xii. 54 f., where, however, it is addressed to the multitude. 
There is no reason for thinking that it appears in its authentic form only in 
Matthew (de Wette), or only in Luke (Schleiermacher, Holtzmann), for 
there is nothing to prevent us from supposing that Jesus may have used 
similar and in itself very natural language on several occasions. — kai 
karahix. avr. arq2Oe] depicting in a simple way the ‘‘justa severitas” 
Bengel) shown toward those incorrigibles. Comp. xxi. 17.—Comp., 
besides, the note on xii. 39. 

Ver. 5. This, according to Fritzsche, is the voyage mentioned in xv. 39, 
so that the disciples are supposed to have come shortly after ‘“‘in eum 
ipsum locum, quem Jesus cum Pharisaeis disputans tenebat.” Unjustifiable 
deviation from the very definite account in Mark viii. 13. After disposing 
of the Pharisees and Sadducees, Jesus crossed over again to the east side of 
the lake along with His disciples ; but Matthew mentions only oi pavyrai, 
because they alone happen to form the subject of éreAd¥ovro, though ver. 6 
shows, beyond all doubt, that Jesws crossed along with them. —irerdtovro] is 
neither to be taken (Erasmus, Calvin, Paulus, Hilgenfeld) as a plupenfect 
(see, on the other hand, note on John xviii. 24), nor as equivalent to 
‘‘viderunt se oblitos esse’ (Beza, Kuinoel, Fritzsche), but thus: after the 
disciples had reached the east side, they forgot to provide themselves with 
bread (to serve them for a longer journey). After coming on shore they 
should have obtained a supply of provisions in view of having a further 
journey before them, but this they forgot. According to Mark viii. 14 ff., 
which in this instance also is the more authentic version, the following con- 
versation is not to be understood as having taken place in the boat (Keim, 
Weiss), but in the course of the further journey after going on shore. 

Ver. 6. The craft and malice of the Pharisees and Sadducees were still 
fresh in His memory, vv. 1-4. — Cin tiv didaygv] éexadrecer, Oc 0&00n Kai 
caxpév, ‘* He called their doctrine leaven, as being like vinegar and worth- 
less,” (Euth. Zigabenus) ; see ver. 12. The allusion is to their peculiar 
sectarian views, in so far as they deviated from the law. The expression is 
explained differently in Luke xii. 1. Comp. note on Gal. v. 9 ; 1 Cor. v. 
6.1 Used differently again in xiii. 33. 

Ver. 7. Owing to the notion of bread being associated in their minds 
with that of leaven, the words of Jesus led them to notice that their supply 
of the former article was exhausted, so that they supposed all the time 


1 For the figurative use of Viv by the of any one who is dad), see Buxtorf, Lew. 
Rabbis (as denoting the infecting influence Talm. p. 2303. Lightfoot on this passage. 


292 THE GOSPEL OF MATTHEW. 


that His object was to warn them against taking bread from the Pharisees 
and Sadducees. — dce2oyifovro] not diseeptabant (Grotius, Kypke, Kuinoel), 
but : they consulted among themselves, i.e., they deliberate (Aéyovrec) over the 
matter within their own circle without saying anything to Jesus, who, how- 
ever, from His being able to penetrate their thoughts, is quite aware of 
what is going on, ver. 8.'— 67] not : recitative, but : (He says that) because 
we have not provided ourselves with bread. In ver. 8 it means : over the fact, 
that. —ri dvadoy.| why, and so on, how meaningless and absurd it is ! 

Ver. 9 f. After those two miracles you have so recently witnessed (xiv. 
15, xv. 32), have you s¢il/ so little penetration as not to understand that the 
thing to which I am alluding is not literal bread, which you ought to have 
depended (d/:yé6r0r.) on my being able to supply whenever occasion might 
require, but rather to something of a spiritual nature ? Jesus lays no more 
stress here than He does elsewhere upon the physical benefit of His bread- 
miracle (de Wette), but simply makes use of it in the way of suggesting 
deeper reflection.—The difference between «é¢. and oxvp. does not lie in 
oxupic being larger (Bengel, which does not follow from Acts ix. 25), but in 
the fact that «égvvoc is a general term, whereas orvpic denotes a food-basket in 
particular. See note on xiv. 20, xv. 37. 

Ver. 11. Iéc¢] how is it possible ! Astonishment in which a certain 
amount of censure is expressed. — rpoocéyere dé] see critical notes. It is not 
necessary to supply eizov (Paulus, Fritzsche), but we are rather to under- 
stand that after the question ending with cizoy iuiv, Jesus repeats, and with 
a view to its being yet more deeply pondered, the warning given in ver. 6, 
in which case dé is simply continuative (autem): But (let me say again) 
beware, and so on. 

Ver. 13 ff. Comp. Mark viii. 27 ff. ; Luke ix. 18 ff. (which latter evange- 
list rejoins, at this point, the synoptic narrative, having left it immediately 
after recording the first miraculous feeding of the multitude, a circumstance 
which is sometimes alleged as a reason for doubting the authenticity of the 
second miracle of this kind).—Caesarea Philippi, a town in Gaulonitis, at 
the foot of Mount Lebanon, which was formerly known by the name of 
Paneas, Plin. WV. H. v. 15. Philip the tetrarch enlarged and embellished it,? 
and called it Caesarea in honor of Caesar (Tiberius). It received the name 
of Philippi in order to distinguish it from Caesarea Palestinae.* —rov vidv 
tov avdporov] See, in general, note on viii. 20. The words are in charac- 
teristic apposition with ye. That is to say, Matthew does not represent 
Jesus as asking in a general way (as in Mark and Luke) who it was that the 
people supposed Him to be, but as putting the question in this more special 
and definite form : whom do the people suppose me, as the Son of man, to be? 
He had very frequently used this title in speaking of Himself ; and what 
He wanted to know was, the nature of the construction which the people . 
put upon the designation in Daniel, which He had ascribed to Himseif, 
whether or not they admitted it to be applicable to Him in its Messianic 





2 Comp. Xen. Mem. iii. 5. 1. neuere Forsch. p. 531 ff. ; Ritter, Hrdk. XV. 1, 
2 Joseph. Antt. xviii. 2, Bell. ii. 9. 1. p. 194 ff. 
3 Robinson, Pal. Ill. pp. 612, 626 ff., and 


CHAP. XVI., 14. 293 


sense.’ From the answer it appears that, as a rule, He was not being taken 
for the Messiah as yet (that consequently the more general appellation : 6 
vide Tov avdp., Was not as yet being applied to Him in the special sense in which 
Daniel uses it), He was only regarded as a forerunner ; but the disciples 
themselves had understood Him to be the Son of man in Daniel’s sense of 
the words, and, as being such, they looked upon Him as the Messiah, the Son 
of God. Accordingly it is not necessary to regard r. vidv r. avdp. as interpo- 
lated by Matthew (Holtzmann, Weizsicker), thereby destroying the suggestive 
correlation in which it stands to the expression, Son of God, in Peter's reply. 
It is not surprising that Strauss should have been scandalized at the ques- 
tion, seeing that he understood it in the anticipatory sense of : ‘‘ whom do 
the people suppose me to be, who am the Messiah?” Beza inserts a mark of 
interrogation after eivac, and then takes the following words by themselves 
thus : an Messiam? But this would involve an anticipation on the part of 
the questioner which would be quite out of place. De Wette (see note on viil. 
20) imports a foreign sense into the passage when he thus explains : ‘‘ who 
do the people say that I am, I, the obscure, humble man who have before 
me the lofty destiny of being the Messiah, and who am under the neces- 
sity of first of all putting forth such efforts in order to secure the recognition 
of my claims ?”” Keim’s view is correct, though he rejects the je (see critical 
notes).—Observe, moreover, how it was, after He had performed such mighty 
deeds in His character of Messiah, and had prepared His disciples by His 
previous training of them, and when feeling now that the erisis was every 
day drawing nearer, that Jesus leads-those disciples to avow in the most 
decided way possible such a conviction of the truth of the Christian confes- 
sion as the experience of their own hearts might by this time be expected 
to justify. Comp. note on ver.17. As for themselves, they needed a relig- 
ious confession thus deeply rooted in their convictions to enable them to 
confront the trying future on which they were about to enter. And to Jesus 
also it was a source of comfort to find Himself the object of such sincere 
devotion ; comp. John vi. 67 ff. But to say that it was not till now that 
He Himself became convinced of His Messiahship (Strauss, before 1864, 
Schenkel), is to contradict the whole previous narrative in every one of the 
evangelists.? 

Ver. 14 f. "Iwdvyny tiv Barr.) Their opinion is similar to that of Antipas, 
xiv. 2. —’H2iav] These 420: cannnot, therefore, have realized in the person 
of the Baptist, that coming of Elias which was to precede the advent of the 
Messiah. — érepo dé] a distinct class of opinion which, whatever may have 
been the subsequent view, was not at that time understood to be in any 
way connected with the expected coming of Elias. For érepoc, comp. note 
on 1 Cor. xii. 9, xv. 40 ; 2 Cor. xi. 4; Gal. i. 6. As forerunner of the Mes- 
siah they expected Jeremiah, who at that time was held in very high repute 
(Ewald, ad Apoe. XI. 3), or some other ancient prophet (risen from the 
dead).* — # éva rév rpog.] where we are not to suppose dAdov to be understood 


1Comp. Holtzmann in _  Hilgenfeld’s p. 41 ff. 
Zeitschr. 1865, p. 228. 3 Bertholdt, Cvristol. p. 58 f. 
2 Comp. Weizsicker, Keim, Weissenborn, 


294. THE GOSPEL OF MATTHEW. 


(Fritzsche), but should rather regard the persons in question as intending 
to say (in a general way) : it is ei¢ Tov xpog.! without mentioning any one 
in particular. For cic, see note on vill. 19. —ipeic dé] from them He expected a 
very different kind of confession, and He was not disappointed. 

Ver. 16. As was to be expected from his impetuous character, his personal 
superiority, as well as from the future standing already assigned him in 
John i. 43, Peter (76 oréua tov arootéAwv, Chrysostom) assumes the part of 
spokesman, and in a decided and solemn manner (hence : 6 vide tod eon Tod 
Cavroc, the higher, and not, as in xiv. 33, the merely theocratic meaning of 
which the apostle could as yet but dimly apprehend, it being impossible for 
him to understand it in all its clearness till after the resurrection, comp. note 
on Rom. i. 4) declares Jesus to be the Messiah (6 Xpictéc) the Son of the living 
God (roi Cavroc, in contrast to the dead idols of the heathen). Both elements 
combined, the work and the person constituted then, as they do always, — 
the sum of the Christian confession. Comp. xxvi. 63 ; John xi. 27, xx. 31; 
Prabal ohm 1.22) 8.7 

Ver. 17. Simon, son (3) of Jona, a solemnly cireumstantial style of address, 
yet not intended as a contrast to the designation of him as Peter which is 
about to follow (de Wette), in connection with which view many expositors 
have allegorized the Bapiwva in an arbitrary and nugatory fashion, but merely 
on account of the importance of the subsequent statement, in which case 
Bapiwva is to be ascribed to the practice of adding the patronymic designa- 
tion, and blending the fap. with the proper name (x. 3 ; Acts xiii. 6 ; Mark 
x. 46).— 67] because thou art favored far above my other followers in 
having had such a revelation as this. —odpé «. aiva] DT) WW3 (among the 
Rabbis), paraphrastic expression for man, involving the idea of weakness as 
peculiar to his bodily nature.? Therefore to be interpreted thus : no weak 
mortal (mortalium ullus) has communicated this revelation to thee ; but, and so 
on. Inasmuch as azoxatirrevv, generally, is a thing to which no human. 
being can pretend, the negative half of the statement only serves to render 
the positive half all the more emphatic. Others refer cap x. aia to ordina- 
ry knowledge and ideas furnished by the senses, in contradistinction to 
xveipa (de Wette, following Beza, Calvin, Calovius, Neander, Olshausen, 
Gléckler, Baumgarten-Crusius, Keim). Incorrectly, partly because the 
lower part of man’s nature is denoted simply by cdpé, not by cap x. aia (in 
1 Cor, xv. 50 the expression flesh and blood is employed in quite a peculiar, 
a physical sense), partly because arexdjue (xi. 25) compels us to think ex- 
clusively of a knowledge which is obtained in some other way than through 
the exercise of one’s human faculties. For a similar reassn, the blending 
of both views (Bleek) is no less objectionable. —It must not be supposed 
that, in describing this confession as the result of a divine revelation, there 
is anything inconsistent with the fact that, for a long time before, Jesus 


1 Observe the climax at the same time; Bengel. 
“nam cognitio de Jesu, ut est jilius Dei, 2 Sir. xiv. 18; Lightfoot on this passage; 
sublimior est quam de eodem, ut est Chris- Bleek’s note on Heb. ii. 14. Comp. the note 


tus,’ ‘for the knowledge of Jesus, as Son ou Gal. i. 16; Eph. vi. 12. 
of God, is higher than of Him as the Christ,” 


CHAP. XVI., 18. 295 


had, in word and deed, pointed to Himself as the Messiah (comp. above all 
the Sermon on the Mount, and such passages as xi. 5 f., 37), and had also 
been so designated by others (John the Baptist, and such passages as viii. 
29, xiv. 33), nay, more, that from the very first the disciples themselves had 
recognized Him as the Messiah, and on the strength of His being so had 
een induced to devote themselves to His person and service (iv. 19; 
John i. 42, 46, 50) ; nor are we to regard the point of the revelation as con- 
sisting in the 6 vide 7. Yeod 7. COvtoc, Sometimes supposed (Olshausen) to in- 
dicate advanced, more perfect knowledge, a view which it would be difficult 
to reconcile with the parallel passages in Mark and Luke ; but observe : (1) 
That Jesus is quite aware that, in spite of the vacillating opinions of the 
multitude, His disciples continue to regard Him as the Messiah, but, in 
order to strengthen and elevate both them and Himself before beginning 
(ver. 21) the painful and trying announcement of His future sufferings, and 
as furnishing a basis on which to take His stand in doing so, He seeks first 
of all to elicit from them an express and decided confession of their faith. 
(2) That Peter acts as the mouthpiece of all the others, and with the utmost 
decision and heartiness makes such a declaration of his belief as, at this 
turning-point in His ministry, and at a juncture of such grave import as re- 
gards the gloomy future opening up before Him, Jesus must have been 
longing to hear, and such as He could not fail to be in need of. (8) That 
He, the heart-scarching one, immediately perceives and knows that Peter 
(as 6 Tov yopov TOV aroaTéAwy Kopupaiog, ‘‘the leader of the apostolic band,” 
Chrysostom) was enabled to make such a declaration from his having been 
favored with a special revelation from God (xi. 27), that He speaks of the 
distinction thus conferred, and connects with it the promise of the high 
position which the apostle is destined to hold in the church. Consequently 
arexddvie is not to be understood as referring to some revelation which had 
been communicated to the disciples at the outset of their career as follow- 
ers of Jesus, but it is to be restricted to Peter, and to a special revelation 
from God with which he had been favored. This confession, founded as it 
was upon such a revelation, must naturally have been far more deliberate, 
far more deeply rooted in conviction, and for the Lord and His work of far 
greater consequence, than-that contained in the exclamation of the people 
in the boat (xiv. 38) when under the influence of a momentary feeling of 
amazement, which latter incident, however, our present passage does not 
require us to treat as unhistorical (Keim and others) ; comp. note on xiv. 
33. — Observe, further, how decidedly the joyful answer of Jesus, with the 
great promise that accompaniesit, forbids the supposition that He consentec 
to accept the title and dignity of a Messiah only from ‘‘not being able t 
avoid a certain amount of accommodation” to the ideas of the people.’ 

Ver. 18. But [again say to thee. The point of the comparison in kayé is, 
that Peter having made a certain declaration in reference to Jesus, Jesws al- 


so, in His turn, now does the same in reference to Peter. — rérpoc] as an ap- 
pellative : thou art a rock, Aram. 89°3. The form 6 rérpoc” is likewise 
1 Schenkel ; see, on the other hand, Weis- 2 Among the later poets 4 métpos is like- 


senborn, p. 43 ff. wise to be met with. See Jacobs, ad Anthol. 


296 THE GOSPEL OF MATTHEW. 


common among Classical writers, and that not merely in the sense of a stone, 
as everywhere in Homer in contradistinction to zérpa,’ but also as meaning 
a rock.” Jesus declares Peter to be a vock on account of that strong and 
steadfast faith in himself to which, under the influence of a special reve- 
lation from God, he had just given expression. According to John i. 43, 
however, Jesus conferred the name Cephas upon him at their very first in- 
terview (according to Mark iii. 16, somewhat later) ; but our passage is not 
to be understood as simply recording the giving of the name, or the giving of 
it for the second time. It is rather intended to be taken as a record of the 
declaration made by Jesus, to the effect that Simon was in reality all that 
the name conferred upon him implied. Consequently our passage is in no 
way inconsistent with that of John just referred to, which could only have 
been the case if the words used had been od Kaydqon Mérpoc. — kai ext tabry 
th xétpa] The emphasis is on ratrvy, which points to Peter (not to Jesus, as 
Augustine would have us suppose), and to be understood thus : on no other 
than on this rock,—hence the feminine form in this instance, because it is 
not so much a question of the name as of the thing which it indicates, 7.¢., of 
that rocky element in the apostle’s character which furnished so solid a 
foundation for the superstructure of the church that was to be built upon 
it. — oikodougow pov tHv éxxAnoiar] will I build for myself (uov, as in viii. 3, and 
frequently ; see note on John xi. 32) the church. The éxxAyoia—in the Old 
Testament IP, Deut. xviil. 16, xxiii. 1, Judg. xxi. 8, the whole assembly 
of the Jewish people (Acts vii. 38), the theocratic national assembly *—is 
used in the New Testament to denote the community of believers, the Chris- 
tian church, which, according to a common figure (1 Cor. iii. 10 f. ; Eph. 
i. 19 ff. ; Gal. ii. 9; 1 Pet. ii. 4 f.), is represented as a building, of which 
Christ here speaks of Himself as the architect, and of Peter as the founda- 
tion on which a building is to be raised (vii. 24 f.) that will defy every ef- 
fort to destroy it. But the term éxca. was in such current use in its theo- 
cratic sense, that it is not necessary to suppose, especially in the case of a 
saying so prophetic as this, that it has been borrowed from a later order of 
things and put into Jesus’ mouth (Weisse, Bleek, Holtzmann). Besides, 
there can be no doubt whatever that the primacy among the apostles is 
here assigned to Peter, inasmuch as Christ singles Aim out as that one in 
particular whose apostolic labors will, in virtue of the steadfast faith for 
which he is peculiarly distinguished, be the means of securing, so far as 
human effort can do so (comp. Rev. xxi. 14; Gal. ii. 9), the permanence 
and stability of the church which Jesus is about to found, and to extend 
more and more in the world. As in accordance with this, we may also 
mention the precedence given to this disciple in the catalogues of the apos- 
tles, and likewise the fact that the New Testament uniformly represents 
him as being, in point of fact, superior to all the others (Acts xv. 7, ii. 14 ; 


XIII. p. 22.—The name Uerpos is also to be mann, Zexil. II. p. 179. 


found in Greek writers of a later age 2 Plat. Aw. p. 871 E: Svovdov wétpos ; Soph. 
(Leont. Schol. 18); more frequently in the Phil. 272, O. C. 19, 1591; Pind. Nem. iv. 46, 
form Herpatos (Lobeck, Paral. p. 342). x. 126. 


1 See Duncan, p. 937, ed. Rost, and Butt- 3 Comp. Sir. xxiy. 1, and Grimm’s note. 


CHAP XW. ils: 29% 
Gal. i. 18, ii. 7, 8). This primacy must be impartially conceded, though 
without involving those inferences which Romanists have founded upon it ; 
for Peter’s successors are not for a moment thought of by Jesus, neither can 
the popes claim to be his successors, nor was Peter himself ever bishop of 
Rome, nor had he any more to do with the founding the church at Rome than 
the Apostle Paul." The explanation frequently had recourse to in anti-popish 
controversies, to the effect that the rock does not mean Peter himself, but 
his steadfast faith and the confession he made of it® (Calovius, Ewald, Lange, 
Wieseler), is incorrect, because the demonstrative expression : 
nétpa, coming immediately after the od ei rétpoc, can only point to the 
apostle himself, as does also the kai décw, etc.. which follows, it being under- 
stood, of course, that it was in consideration of Peter’s faith that the Lord 
declared him to be a foundation of rock. It is this circumstance also that 
underlies the reference to the apostle’s faith on the part of the Fathers,3— 
The expression : tiAa adov (which does not require the article,* is to be 
explained by the circumstance that because Hades is a place from which 
there is no possibility of getting out again (Eustathius, ad Od. xi. 276 ; 
Blomfield, Gloss. in Aesch. Per's. p. 164), it is represented under the figure 
of a palace with strong gates.°— ov xaticyicovoww abt#¢| So securely will I 
build my church upon this rock, that the gates of Hades will not be able to re- 
sist it, will not prove stronger than it ; indicating, by means of a compar- 
ison, the great strength and stability of the edifice of the church, even 
when confronted with so powerful a structure as that of Hades, the gates 
of which, strong as they are, will yet not prove to be stronger than the 
building of the church ; for when the latter becomes perfected in the Messi- 
anic kingdom at the second coming, then those gates will be burst open, in 
order that the souls of the dead may come forth from the subterranean world 
to participate in the resurrection and the glory of the kingdom (comp. note 
on 1 Cor. xx. 54 f.), when death (who takes away the souls of men to im- 
prison them in Hades), the last enemy, has been destroyed (1 Cor. xv. 26). 
So far the victory of the church over Hades is, of course, affirmed, yet not 
in such a way as to imply that there had been an attack made by the one 
upon the other, but so as to convey the idea that when the church reaches 
her perfected condition, then, as a matter of course, the power of the 
nether world, which snatches away the dead and retains them in its grasp, 
will also be subdued. This victory presupposes faith on the part of the 
xatayVovior (Phil. ii. 10), and consequently the previous descensus Christi ad 
inferos. Moreover, had He chosen, Christ might have expressed Himself 


émt TAUTH TH 


1 For the false reasoning on this subject, fide,’ comp. Origen, Cyril, Chrysostom, 


see Dillinger, Christenth. u. Kirche, p. 315 ff. 

2 Comp. Luther’s gloss: ‘‘ All Christians 
are Peters on account of the confession 
here made by Peter, which confession is the 
rock on which he and all Peters are built.” 
Melanchthon, generalizing the wé7pa, under- 
stands it in the sense of the verum ministe- 
rium. Comp. Art. Smale. p. 345. 

3 Ambrose: ‘‘ non de carne Petri, sed de 


Augustine. 

4 Winer, p. 118 f. [E. T. 147. ff.] 

5 Cant. viii. 6 f.; Job xxxviii. 17; Isa. 
xxxviii. 10; Ps. ix. 14, cvii. 18; Wisd. xvi- 
13; 3 Mace. v. 51; Ev. Nicod. xxi., and 
Thilo’s note, p. 718; more frequently also 
in Homer, as J/. viii. 15; Aesch. dgam. 12915 
Eur. Z/ipp. 56. 


298 THE GOSPEL OF MATTHEW. 


thus : Kai rvAdv adov kariayboer 3 but, keeping in view the comparative idea 
which underlies the statement, He prefers to give prominence to ‘‘ the gates 
of Hades” by making them the subject, which circumstance, combined with 
the use of the negative form of expression (Rev. xii. 8), tends to produce a 
somewhat solemn effect. xaticybew tivog : praevalere adversus aliquem.' Tf 
we adopt the no less grammatical interpretation of : to overpower, to subdue 
(Luther and the majority of commentators), a most incongruous idea emerges 
in reference to the gates, and that whether we understand the victory as one 
over the devil (Erasmus, Luther, Beza, Calvin, Calovius, Maldonatus, 
Michaelis, Keim) or over death (Grotius) ; for the gates of Hades would 
thus be represented as the attacking side, which would hardly be appropri- 
ate, and we would have to suppose what, on the other hand, would be for- 
eign to the sense, that all the monsters of hell would rush out through the 
opened gates.* The point of the comparison lies simply in the strength that 
distinguishes such solid gates as those of Hades, and not also in the Oriental 
use of the gates as a place of meeting for deliberation (Glickler, Arnoldi), as 
though the hostile designs of hell where what was meant. Notwithstanding 
the progressive nature of the discourse and the immediate subject, Wetstein 
and Clericus refer airy to Peter (rabty r. rétpa), and suppose the meaning 
to be: ‘‘eum in discrimen vitae venturum, nec tamen eo absterritum iri,” 
“that he was about to come into peril of his life, but nevertheless, that he 
would not have been terrified by it,” etc.—Notice, besides, the grandeur of 
the expression: ‘‘ grandes res etiam grandia verba postulant,” ‘‘ grand 
matters require grand words.”* [See note IX., p. 304.] 

Ver. 19. And I will give to thee the keys of the Messianic kingdom,‘ i.e., the 
power of deciding as to who are to be admitted into or excluded from the 
future kingdom of the Messiah. For the figurative expression, comp. Luke 
Mimo peeve delet. ix 1; xls Isat 22s Agcems. isa, was 
décw] The future expresses the idea of a promise (the gift not being, as yet, 
actually conferred), as in the case of oixodoujow, pointing forward to the time 
when Christ will no longer administer the affairs of the church ina direct 
and personal manner. This future already shows that what was meant 
cannot have been the office of preaching the gospel, which preaching is supposed 
to lead to admission into the kingdom of heaven, wherever God has pre- 
pared men’s hearts for its reception (Diisterdieck, Julius Miller). The si- 
militude of the keys corresponds to the figurative oixodou., ver. 18, in so far as 
the éxxAyoia, ver. 18 (which is to be transformed into the Baovdeia tr. ovp. at 
the second coming), is conceived of as a house, the doors of which are opened 
and locked by means of keys (generally, not exactly by two of them). In re- 
gard to Peter, however, the figure undergoes some modification, inasmuch as 
it passes from that of the foundation of rock, not certainly into the lower one 


1 Jer. xv. 18; Ael. NV. A. v. 19; comp. Steitz in the Stud. u. Krit. 1866, p. 436 ff. ; 
avtucxvewv Tivos, Wisd. vii. 80, and toxvew likewise the reviews of the first-mentioned 


kata Tivos, Acts xix. 16. work in the Zrlang. Zeitschr. 1865, 3, p. 
2 Ewald, comp. also Weizsicker, p. 494. 137 ff ; and that of Diisterdieck in the Stud. 
3 Dissen, ad Pind. p. 715. u. Krit. 1865, p. 743; Julius Miiller, dog. 


4See Ahrens, d. Amt. Schitissel, 1864; Abbh. p. 496 ff. 


CHAP. XVI., 19. 299 
of a gate-keeper, but (comp. Luke xii. 4; 1 Cor. iv. 1, ix. 17 ; Tit. i. 7) 
into that of an olxovéuoc (rauiac, Isa. xxii. 15 ff.), from the ordinary relation 
of a disciple to the church to the place of authority hereafter to be assigned 
him in virtue of that relation. The authority in question is that of a house- 
steward, who is empowered to determine who are to belong and who are not 
to belong to the household over which his master has commissioned him to 
preside.’ All this is expressed by means of an old and sacred symbol, ac- 
cording to which the keys of the house are promised to Peter, ‘‘ that he may 
open and no man shut, that he may shut and no man open” (Isaiah as above). 
—For the forms «Aeic and (as Tischendorf 8, on inadequate testimony) «Aeidac, 
see Kiihner, I. p. 857. — kai 6 édv dfone, x.7.2.] a necessary adjunct of this 
power : and whatsoever thou wilt have forbidden upon earth will be forbidden in 
heaven (by God), so that it will, in consequence, prevent admission into the 
Messianic kingdom ; and whatsoever thou wilt have permitted upon earth (as 
not proving a hindrance in the way of admission to the future kingdom) 
will be permitted in heaven. It will depend on thy decision—which God will 
ratify—what things, as being forbidden, are to disqualify for the kingdom 
of the Messiah, and what things, as being allowed, are to be regarded as 
giving a claim to admission. déevy and Avey are to be traced to the use, so 
current among the Jews, of 108 and VW, in the sense of to forbid and to 
allow.* In the face of this common usage, it would be arbitrary and absurd 
to think of any other explanation. The same may be said not only of the 
reference to the supreme administrative power in general (Arnoldi and the 
older Catholics), or to the treasures of grace in the church, which Peter is 
supposed to be able to withhold or bestow as he may deem proper (Schegg), 
but likewise of the view which represents the words as intended to indicate 
the power of admitting into and excluding from the church,’ and in support of 
which an appeal is made, notwithstanding the 6, to the ancient practice of 
tying or untying doors ; as well as of that other view which has been so 


1 There is no force in the objection that mediately after «Aes (accordingly, in this 


this would be to confound the keys of the 
house-steward with those of the porter 
(Ahrens). The keys of the house are en- 
trusted to the steward for the purpose of 
opening and locking it; this is all that the 
figure implies. Whether he opensand locks 
in his own person, or has it done through the 
medium of a porter, is of no consequence 
whatever, and makes no difference as far as 
the thing intended to be symbolized is con- 
cerned. The power of the keys belongs, in 
any case, to the olxovouos, and not to the 
Svpwpds. The view of Ahrens, that the keys 
are to be regarded as those of the rooms, 
and of the place in which the family provi- 
sions are stored, the tametov, the contents of 
which it is supposed to be the duty of the 
steward to distribute (so also Ddllinger, 
Christenth. u. Kirche, p. 31), is in opposition 
to the facet that the thing which is fo be 
opened and locked must be understood to be 
that which is expressed by the genitive im- 


jnstance, the kingdom, not the tapeior), 
comp. note on Luke xi. 52, likewise Isaiah 
as above. Moreover, according to the ex 
planation of Ahrens, those, on whose be- 
half the tayctas uses his keys, would have to 
be regarded as already within the kingdom 
and participating in its blessings, so that 
there would be no further room for the 
idea of exclusion, which is not in keeping 
with the contrast which follows. 

2 Lightfoot, p. 378 ff. ; Schoettgen, II. p. 
894 f., and Wetstein on this passage ; Len- 
gerke’s note on Dan. vi. 8; Rosenmiiller, 
Morgenl. V. 67; Steitz, p. 488f. Following 
Lightfoot, Vitringa, Schoettgen, and oth- 
ers, Fritzsche, Ahrens, Steitz, Weizsicker, 
Keim, Gess (I. p. 68), Gottschick in the Stud. 
u. Krit. 1873, also adopt this interpretation 
of those figurative expressions. 

3 Thaddaeus aS. Adamo, Commentat. 1789. 
Rosenmiiller, Lange. 


300 THE GOSPEL OF MATTHEW. 

currently adopted, after Chrysostom, Theophylact, Euth. Zigabenus, Eras- 
mus, Luther, Beza, Calvin, Maldonatus, to the effect that what Jesus means 
is the remission and non-remission of sins. So Grotius, Olshausen, de Wette, 
Bleek, Neander, Gléckler, Baumgarten-Crusius, Déllinger, Julius Miiller, 
Diisterdieck. But to quote in connection with this the different and much 
later saying of Jesus, after His resurrection, John xx. 23, is quite unwar- 
ranted ; the idea of sin is a pure importation, and although Aiew duapr. may 
properly enough be understood as meaning : to forgive sins,’ yet the use of 
déevv duapr., in the sense of retaining them, is altogether without example. 
Exception has been taken to the idea involved in our interpretation ; but 
considering that high degree of faith to which Peter, as their representative, 
here shows them to have attained, the apostles must be supposed to possess 
‘‘the moral power of legislation” (objected to by de Wette) as well, if they 
are to determine the right of admission to the Messiah’s kingdom.* This 
legislative authority, conferred upon Peter, can only wear an offensive aspect 
when it is conceived of as possessing an arbitrary character, and as being in 
no way determined by the ethical influences of the Holy Spirit, and when it 
is regarded as being of an absolute nature, as independent of any connection 
with the rest of the apostles (but see note on xviii. 18).* Ahrens, likewise, 
correctly interprets the words in the sense of to forbid, and to allow, but 
supposes the words themselves to be derived from the practice of fastening 
with a knot vessels containing anything of a valuable nature.* Artificial and 
far-fetched, but resulting from the reference of the keys to the rayeiov. — 
éorat dedeu.] Observe how that is spoken of as already done, which is to take 
place and be realized immediately on the back of the 6 éay dfoye.6 To such 
a degree will the two things really harmonize with one another. 

Ver. 20. Avcoreiaato] He appointed, strictly enjoined.” — bri airéc éorw 6 X.] 
that He Himself is the Messiah. This airéc points back to ver. 14, according 
to which some one else was looked for as the Messiah, while Jesus was only 
regarded as His forerunner. The reason of this prohibition is not that He 
wanted to anticipate any offence that might afterwards arise in consequence 
of His sufferings (Chrysostom, Euth. Zigabenus), for Jesus quite foresaw 
His resurrection and défa, and the effect which these would have upon His 
followers (John xii. 32); but (see note on viii. 4) its explanation is to be found 
in His uniform desire to avoid awakening and fostering sanguine Messianic 
hopes among the people. 


1JIn which case the result of apostolic 
preaching generally, i.e., its efficacy in judg- 
ing men by éhe spiritual power of the word 
(Julius Miller, comp. Neander and Diister- 
dieck), ceases to have any significance other 
than that of a vague abstraction, by no 
means in keeping with the specific expres- 
sion of the text, and leaving no room for 
assigning to Peter any special prerogative. 
This also in answer to Weiss, dil. Theol. p. 
99, 2d ed., who holds that, originally, the 
words were intended to indicate merely 
that general commission which was given 


to the apostles to publish among men the 
call to the kingdom of God. 

2 Isa. X12) SiHsdrix. 1d sh Sil Xxviliess 
and see Kypke on xviii. 18. 

3 See Steitz also, p. 458. 

4 Comp. Wieseler, Chronol. d. Ap. p. 587 f. 

> Hom. Od. viii. 447. 

§ Comp. Buttmann, neut. Gr. p. 267 [E. T. 
311] ; Ktihner, II. 1, p. 35. 

7 Comp. Plat. Rep. p. 535 B; Aristot. Polit. 
ii. 5; Judith xi. 12; 2 Macc. xiv. 28; Mark 
y. 43; Acts xy. 24; Heb. xii. 20. 


CHAP. XVI., 21. 301 


Ver. 21. ’Ard rére jp£ato] Comp. iv. 17; a note of time marking an im- 
portant epoch.’ To announce His future sufferings* to His disciples, and 
that immediately after their decided confession, ver. 16, was highly oppor- 
tune, both as regards their capability and their need—their capability to 
stand so trying an intimation, and their need of beginning to relinquish their 
false hopes, and of attaining to a true and exalted conception of what con- 
stitutes the work of the Messiah. Mark viii. 31 likewise introduces the be- 
ginning of the announcement of the future sufferings somewhat prominently 
after Peter’s confession, whereas Luke ix. 21 f. omits it altogether. — dei] 
Necessity in accordance with a divine purpose, xxvi. 54; Luke xxiv. 26 ; 
John iii. 14. —areAdeiv cic ‘Iepoo.] because connected with cai roA2a raver, 
k.T.A., does not forbid the idea of previous visits to Jerusalem mentioned by 
John (in answer to Hilgenfeld, Huang. p. 89); comp. xxiii. 87. —azé] at the 
hands of ; comp. note on xi. 19. — rév mpeoB. x. apy. k. ypauu.| This circum- 
stantial way of designating the Sanhedrim (comp. note on ii. 4) has here 
something of a solemn character. — aroxrav}.| further detail (though with 
ver. 24 already in view) reserved for xx. 19. What Jesus contemplates is 
not being stoned to death by the people (Hausrath), but judicial murder 
through the decision of a court of justice. — kai 79 tpity ju. éyepSjvac] With 
so clear and distinct a prediction of the resurrection, it is impossible to rec- 
oncile the fact that, utterly disheartened by the death of their Lord, the dis- 
ciples should have had no expectation whatever that He would come to life 
again, that they consequently embalmed the body, and that even on the 
Sunday morning the women wanted to anoint it ; that they should have placed 
a heavy stone at the mouth of the grave, and afterwards are utterly at a loss 
to account for the empty sepulchre, and treat the statement that He has 
risen and appeared again as simply incredible, some of them even doubting 
His identity when they do see Him ; and further, that the risen Jesus appeals, 
indeed, to an Old Testament prediction (Luke xxiv. 25), but not to His 
own ; just as John, in like manner, accounts for Peter and himself not be- 
lieving in the resurrection till they had actually seen the empty grave, mere- 
ly from their having hitherto failed to understand the scripture (John xx. 
9). All this is not to be disposed of by simply saying that the disciples had 
not understood the prediction of Jesus (Mark ix. 22); for had it been so 
plainly and directly uttered, they could not have failed to understand it, 
especially as, in,the course of His own ministry, cases had occurred of the 
dead being restored to life, and as the Messianic hopes of the disciples must 
have disposed them to give a ready reception to tidings of a resurrection. 


1“ Antea non ostenderat,” ‘‘ He had not 
shown it to them before,” Bengel. 

2 Whoever supposes that it was only 
somewhere about this time that the thought 
of His impending sufferings and death first 
began to dawn upon Jesus (Hase, Weiz- 
siicker, Keim, Wittichen), can do so only by 
ignoring previous statements on the part of 
the Lord, which already point with suffi- 
cient clearness to His painful end (see 


especially ix. 15, x. 38, xii. 40)—statements 
the testimony of which is to be set aside 
only by explaining away and rejecting them 
by the artifice of mixing up together dates 
of different times, and the like, and thus 
depriving them of validity, a course which 
is decidedly opposed to the Gospel of John 
(comp. i. 29, ii. 19, iii. 14, vi. 51 ff.) so long as 
its authenticity is recognized | 


- 


302 THE GOSPEL OF MATTHEW. 


Then, again, the fulfilment would necessarily have had the effect of awakening 
both their memory and their understanding, and that all the more that pre- 
cisely then light was being shed upon the mysterious saying regarding the 
temple of the body (John ii. 21 f.). We must therefore suppose that Jesus 
had made certain dark, indefinite allusions to His resurrection, which as yet 
had not been apprehended in their true meaning, and that it was only ex 
eventu that they assumed, in the course of tradition, the clear and definite 
form of a prediction such as is now before us. It is only such faint, obscure 
hints that are as yet to be met within John ii. 19, x. 17 f., and see observa- 
tion on Matt. xii. 40.1 Other expositors (Paulus, Hase, Scholten, Schenkel, 
Volkmar), arbitrarily ignoring those traces of a dim prophetic hint of the 
resurrection, have contended that, originally, nothing more was meant than 
a symbolical allusion,—an. allusion, that is, to the new impetus that would be 
given to the cause of Jesus, while some of them have denied that any announce- 
ment of the death ever took place at all (Strauss ; see, on the other hand, 
Ebrard). But the arguments of Siiskind,? Heydenreich,* Kuinoel, Ebrard, 
and others in favor of the perfect authenticity of the definite and literal pre- 
dictions of the resurrection, are not conclusive, and, to some extent, move 
in # circle. . 

Ver. 22. IpootaBdu.] after he had taken Him to himself, comp. xvii. 1, i.e., 
had taken Him aside to speak to Him privately. The very common inter- 
pretation : he took Him by the hand, imports what does not belong to the 
passage. — #pfaro] for Jesus did not allow him to proceed further with his 
remonstrances, which had commenced with the words immediately follow- 
ing ; see ver. 23. —iAede cor] sc. ein 6 Sede, A Wish that God might graciously 
avert what he had just stated, a rendering of the Hebrew mon, 2 Sam. xx. 
20, xxiii. 17; 1 Chron. xi. 19, LXX. 1 Macc. ii. 21, and see Wetstein. 
Comp. our: God forbid ! —icra| purely future ; expressive of full conji- 
dence. °O pév arexadigdn, 6 Térpoc optic duodrdynoev. 6 d& obk areKarbodn, 
éogddy, ‘as to what was revealed Peter rightly confessed ; but as to what 
was not revealed he went wrong,” Theophylact. Peter was startled ; 
nothing, in fact, could have formed a more decided contrast to the Messianic 
conception on which his confession seemed to have been based, than the 
idea of a Messiah suffering and dying like a malefactor. 

Ver. 23. Zrpadeic] He turned away, by way of indicating His horror. — 
ixaye oriow wov] See note on iv. 10.—carava] Satan! A term of reproach, 
springing out of the intense displeasure with which He now saw Peter 
striving, like Satan, against that purpose of God of which he was so pro-— 
foundly conscious. Not ‘‘ moral vexation” (Keim), but moral displeasure. 
Comp. John vi. 70. Seeing that Peter’s feelings have changed, it was 
proper that the testimony of Jesws regarding him should undergo a corre- 
sponding change (Augustine), although without prejudice to the high posi- 
tion just promised to him by Jesus ; for this distinction neither excludes the 
idea of there being still a strong carnal element in Peter’s character, nor 

1 Comp. besides, Hasert, zi. d. Vorhersag. 2 In Flatt’s Magaz. VII. p. 181 ff. 


Jesu von 8. Tode u. s. Auferst. 1839, Neander, 3 In Huffel’s Zeitschr. Il. p. 7 ff. 
de Wette, Ammon. 


CHAP, XVI., 24~27. 303 


does it imply that he was beyond the need of correction ; consequently, the 
evasive interpretation of Catholic expositors, who, in this instance, take 
carava as an appellative (adversarius ; so Maldonatus, Jansen, Arnoldi), is 
utterly groundless. — oxdvd. ov ei ].1— dpoveic] thou hast in thy mind ; indicat- 
ing the direction of his aims, the bent of the practical reason. Comp. note 
on Rom. viii. 5. —7a rov veo] matters of divine interest ; because God is to 
be understood as having ordained the sufferings of Jesus for the purpose of 
carrying out the plan of redemption. — ra rv avd porwr] who are concerned 
about having as their Messiah an earthly hero and prince. 

Ver. 24 f. Comp. Mark viii. 34 ff.; Luke ix. 23 ff. As J must suffer, so 
also must all my followers ! —oziow pov éiFeiv| as in iv. 19. — éavrov] i.e., His 
own natural self.? To that which this 8éAyua desires, He says : No /— 
aparw 7. or.| let him not shrink from the pain of a violent death such as He 
Himself will be called upon to endure. Comp. note on x. 38. — kai axoA. 
oc] that is, after he has taken up his cross. What goes before indicates the 
precise kind of following which Jesus requires. John xxi. 19. According 
to the context, it is not a question of moral following generally (kai racav 
Thy GAAnv apetny éexideckvicSa, Theophylact, comp. Euth. Zigabenus, Chrysos- 
tom). But, by way of illustrating the idea of self-denial, Theophylact ap- 
propriately refers to the example of Paul, Gal. ii. 20.—Ver. 25. See note 
on x. 30. 

Ver. 26. Ver. 25, compared with ver. 24, involved the thought that the 
earthly life must be sacrificed for sake of gaining the eternal. The reason 
of this thought is now brought forward. — d¢edeira:] represents as already 
present the man’s condition at the day of judgment, not an Attic future 
(Bleek). —rjv 68 Woy. aitod SnuwdH] but will have lost his soul, that is to say, 
by his having rendered himself unfit for eternal life, by having, there- 
fore, lost his soul as far as the Messianic fCo# is concerned, and be- 
come liable to eternal death. (juwdy is the opposite of xepdyoy. It 
must not on this ground, and because of the avra2Aayua which follows, be 
explained as meaning, to sustain damage in his soul (Luther), but : animae 
detrimentum pati (Vulgate), comp. Herod. vii. 39 : rot évdg tiv wuyqv Snu- 
éceat, thou wilt lose thine only one through death. — 4] It avails a man 
nothing if he, and so on, it might be that (at the judgment) he would have 
something to give to God with which to purchase back his lost soul.* There 
exists no such means of exchange (commutationem, Vulgate), nothing which, 
in the sight of God and according to His holy standard, would be of such 
value as to serve as an dvré/2ayua for the soul.* 

Ver. 27. Tap] justifies and confirms what Jesus has just stated with respect 
to the loss of the ywy7. I say that not without reason ; for assuredly the 
time of the second coming and of a righteous retribution is drawing near 
(uéAAe being put first for sake of emphasis). — év r@ ddEy rod TaTp. ait.] in 


1 cumddicy mou viv tmapyxets, avTiKeimevos TO 3 ayraAAayua, Eur. Or. 1157, frequently 
€u@ veAjuate, Euth. Zigabenus. met with in the LXX. and Apocrypha. 

2 70 EavToD FEAnLA TO HiAydovoy, 7d hiddgwor, 4 **Non sufficit mundus,’ Bengel. Comp. 
“his own will, loving pleasure, loving life,” Ritschl in the Jahrb. f. D. Th. 1863, p. 234 ff. 


Euth. Zigabenus. 


304 THE GOSPEL OF MATTHEW. 


the same glory as belongsto God. For in this state of glory (John xvii. 5) the 
ascended Christ occupies the place of civdpovoc of God. — rv rpati] the 
conduct, the sum of one’s doings, including, in particular, that self-denying 
adherence to their faith and their confession on which, above all, so much 
depended, in the case of the apostles, in the midst of those persecutions 
which they were called upon to endure. 

Ver. 28. Having affirmed the certainty of the second coming and the 
divine retribution, He now proceeds to do the same with regard to their 
nearness. — ici Tivec x.T.A.] Which refers to those present generally, and not 
merely to the disciples, presupposes that the majority of them will have 
died previous to the event in question. — yetowrra: Savarov] The experienc- 
ing of death regarded as a tasting of it (of its pains). See note on John 
viii. 52, and Wetstein. — éwc, «.7.2.] not as though they were to die after- 
wards, but what is meant is, that they 27// still be living when it takes place.? 
—év th Baorteta avtov] not for cic rv x.7.A. (Beza, Raphel, and others), but 
as aking in all his regal authority. Luke xxiii. 42. There is no substantial 
difference between the present prediction of Jesus as to His impending advent 
in glorious majesty (comp. X. 23, xxiv. 34), and that in Mark ix. 1 ; Luke ix. 
27. The Baoidcia cannot be supposed to come without the Bacrei¢. This, 
at the same time, in answer to Ebrard,* who interprets this passage, not of 
the second coming to judgment, but, laying stress on the év (against which 
the év rH dé, ver. 27, should have duly warned), understands it as referring 
to the founding of the church, and particularly to what took place at Pen- 
tecost, and that notwithstanding the context and the words eioi tuvec, etc., 
which, if this view were adopted, would be entirely out of place (Glass, 
Calovius). It is likewise to explain it away in a manner no less arbitrary, to 
understand the passage in the sense of a figurative coming in the destruction 
of Jerusalem and the diffusion of Christianity (Jac. Cappellus, Wetstein, 
Kuinoel, Schott, Gléckler, Bleek), or of the triumphant historical development 
of the gospel (Erasmus, Klostermann, Schenkel), or of the powerful influ- 
ences of the spirit of the glorified Messiah as extending over the world 
(Paulus). Others, such as Beda, Vatablus, Maldonatus, Jansen, Clarius, 
Corn. 4 Lapide, following Chrysostom, Euth. Zigabenus, Theophylact, 
have so strangely perverted Christ’s prediction as even to make it refer to 
the incident of the transfiguration immediately following. — On the impend- 
ing advent in general, see the observations at the close of ch. xxiv. 


Note py American Epiror. 
Xe 


Of the words éxi tavtn tH métpa there are three interpretations, and it would 
seem only three possible : (1) that the rock meant is Christ ; (2) that the rock is 
Peter ; (8) that the rock is Peter’s confession. Each of these has had support, 


1Gomp. xxiy. 34; Hofmann, Schriftbew. and kings.” 

II. 2, p. 629 f. 3 Comp. Baumeister in Klaiber’s Stidien, 
2 Plat. Rep. p. 499 B: tav viv év duvactetats ING a joy, ake) 

} Bacwdciats dvtwy, ‘the present sovereigns 


NOTE. 305 


both from ancient and modern scholars. Augustine, to whom Dr. Meyer refers, 
changed his opinion, first interpreting the rock to be Peter, but afterwards to 
be Christ. Astrong polemic interest has biassed the minds of both Protestants 
and Catholics, in arguing, the one side, that Peter is the rock, and the other, 
Peter's confession. But the former interpretation makes nothing for the 
Catholic claim of Peter’s perpetual headship of the Church through his suc- 
cessors ; for we know that the other apostles, and particularly Paul, were 
wholly independent of Peter; we know also that there is no proof that the 
man of rock appointed the bishops of Rome his successors to the headship, 
which it is falsely assumed belonged to him. If xérpa be referred to Peter, 
still it is not on Peter’s bare personality, but on Peter confessing his Master 
to be the Son of God, that the Church is built. The confession, if we may so 
say, underlies Peter, and makes him the rock. Peter, misconceiving his Master, 
and dissuading Jesus from a career of suffering, is soon after called Satan, and 
is set aside as an offence ; Peter inspired of the Father in heaven to confess 
the divine sonship of Jesus, is selected for an important function in the build- 
ing of the Church. .This function he afterwards fulfilled, in laying the foun- 
dation of the Church both among the Jews and the Gentiles. ‘ That this,”’ 
says Alford, ‘‘is the simple and only interpretation of the words of our Lord, 
the whole usage of the New Testament shows, in which not doctrines nor con- 
fessions, but men are uniformly the pillars and stones of the spiritual building. 
See 1 Pet. ii. 4, 6; 1 Tim. iii. 15; Gal. ii. 9; Eph. ii. 20; Rev. iii. 12. And 
it is on Peter, as by divine revelation making this confession, as thus under 
the influence of the Holy Ghost, as standing out before the apostles in the 
strength of this faith, as himself founded on the one foundation, that the 
Jewish portion of the Church was built, Acts ii.5, and the Gentile, Acts 
oe < age 

In interpreting 08 Karis yvoovory abrijc, Dr. Meyer rejects the idea that there is 
implied an attack of the gates of Hades upon the Church. Hence he renders, 
“the gates of Hades will not be able to resist it, will not prove stronger than 
it ;” on the other hand, our revised English version reads : ‘‘ the gates of Hades 
shall not prevail against it,” implying that the kingdom of death is engaged in 
active hostility to the kingdom of life. This not only agrees with the natural 
meaning of katicytw, but agrees also with the analogy of Scripture. In the 
New Testament death and life are antitheses, and to death is assigned an active 
antagonism to life, which antagonism Christ meets and subdues. Christ comes 
to abolish death and bring life and immortality to light (2 Timi. 10); and the 
last enemy that shall be destroyed is death, for he hath put all things under 
his feet (1 Cor. xv. 26, 27; see also Heb. i. 14, 15). The assurance of a life 
which death cannot overcome is one of the objects, as well as one of the fruits 
of Christ’s manifestation in our flesh. 

As to the power of binding and loosing, it is to be observed, that whatever 
is granted to Peter in this passage is subsequently granted to the whole body 
of disciples (chap. xviii. 18). Whatever the contents of this power, there- 
fore, they pertain not to Peter exclusively, as chief of the apostles, nor to the 

body of apostles exclusively, but to the Church. It is a question much mooted 
by interpreters, whether the words déew and Avevv refer to legislative or judi- 
cial authority. Dr. Meyer decides for the former, and renders these words 


1“ Gom. on Matthew,” Amer. ed., p. 159. 


306 THE GOSPEL OF MATTHEW. 


‘*forbid” and ‘‘allow.’’ Alford also claims that this is the sense, strictly con- 
sidered ; and so also does Mansel, in the Speaker's Commentary, both eyi- 
dently following Meyer. Cremer, however, determines, with some hesitation, 
for “binding” and ‘‘loosing’’ in a judicial sense. ‘‘Our judgment as to the 
allowableness of this explanation’ [i.e., Meyer's], he says, ‘‘ must depend upon 
internal grounds. In the face of such expressions as Matt. v. 19, xxiii. 3, 4, 
such an interpretation seems more than hazardous; the quantitative 6ou 
(xviii. 18) especially would militate against the spirit of New Testament life, 
thought, and phraseology ; and it is evident from the context that in Matt. v. 
19 a judicial and not a ‘legislative’ authority is referred to, while in the first- 
named passage (Matt. xvi. 19) ‘the keys of the kingdom of heaven’’ simply 
imply the same thing, cf, Rev. iii. 17. ‘‘The simpler plan would perhaps be 
to take 6 and éou as collective designations of persons, for which, indeed, ac- 
cording to the rule, the neuter singular is used, yet also the plural, e.g., 1 Cor. 
1. 27, 28. Ade tiva would then be = to release any one from punishment. But dca 
would not sound acceptably to Greek ears if used in this sense.! 

Dr. Thomas Arnold, in his essay on the Church, construes ‘‘binding and loos- 
ing’’ as a grant of both legislative and judicial powers. His distinction is very 
clear : To bind, legislatively, is to impose a general obligation ; to say that a 
thing ought to be done, or ought not to be done. To bind judicially is to im- 
pose a particular obligation on an individual; to oblige him to do or suffer 
certain things for the sake of justice. To loose judicially is to pronounce a 
man free from any such obligation ; to declare that justice does not require of 
him, in this particular case, to do or to suffer anything for its satisfaction.? 
There is force in this distinction, and it may help us to reconcile disagreeing 
interpretations, 


1 “ Biblico-Theological Lexicon of New Testament Greek,’ pp. 407, 408. 
° Essay on the Church, Miscellaneous Works, pp. 19, 20. 


CHAP. XVII. 30 


© 
= 


CHAPTER XVII. 


Ver. 8. 6¢$yoav] Lachm. and Tisch.: dp%y, after BD &, Curss. and Codd. of 
the It. The plural isa grammatical correction ; the sing. can scarcely be taken 
from Mark ix. 4. — Ver. 4. roijowpev] Lachm. and Tisch.: roijow, after BC 8, 
Ver. Corb. 1, Germ. 1. Correctly ; the plural is from Mark and Luke.—The 
arrangement ’HAia uiav (Lachm. Tisch.) is supported by decisive testimony. — 
Ver. 5. dwrewvy] Only on the authority of a few Curss. and Ephr. Griesb. and 
Fritzsche have ¢w7¢éc, which Olshausen also prefers. An interpretation for the 
purpose of defining the wonderful nature of the cloud.—The order dkovere aitov 
(inverted in Elz.) is, with Lachm. and Tisch. 8, after BD 8, 1, 33, to be preferred. 
The reading of the Received text is according to the LXX.— Ver. 7. Lachm. 
and Tisch. 8: xa? mpooyAHev 6°1 Kaidwapuevog avtov elvev, after B (in the first 
half of the sentence also D) 8, Verss. Seeing how much the reading fluctuates 
in the various authorities, the Received text, from having the balance of testi- 
mony in its favor, is not to be abandoned. — Ver. 9. éx] Elz.: aw6. Approved 
by Scholz, against decisive testimony. From Mark ix. 9, for the sake of con- 
formity with the ordinary usage. — avaoty] Lachm. and Tisch.: éyep6g, after B 
D, Sahid. The reading of the Received text is from Mark ix. 9.— Ver. 11. On 
important testimony, "Ijcoi¢ and atroic are, with Lachm. and Tisch., to be de- 
leted. Common interpolations. —zpo7ov] is omitted after épy.in B D 38, 
Curss. Verss. Aug. Hil.; L inserts it after aroxat. Suspected by Griesb., 
deleted by Fritzsche, Lachm., Tisch. Repetition from ver. 10, jin accordance 
with Mark ix. 12.— Ver. 14. aizvév] which Lachm. and Tisch. have deleted, is 
omitted in B Z &, 1, 124, 245, Sahid.; it might easily have been overlooked 
from coming, as it does, immediately after 2A6é,TQN. — airév] Elz.: aira, 
against decisive testimony. — Ver. 15. racyer] Lachm.: éyer, after BL Z 8, 
Or. Either an involuntary alteration occasioned by the current use of the ex- 
pression kakac éyevv (iv. 24, viii. 16, ix. 12, xiv. 35), or indentional, on account of 
the apparent pleonasm. — Ver. 17. The order eG’ tuav écopat (Lachm. Tisch.) is 
supported by the preponderating testimony of BC DZ ®&, Curss. Or., and 
ought to be adopted. Comp. Mark and Luke. — Ver, 20, dmoriavy] Lachm., 
Tisch. 8: d/cyoruoriav, after B &, Curss. Syr™ Sahid. Copt. Arm. Aeth. Or. 
Chrys. An ancient emendation to soften the expression, amotiav, after ver. 
17 especially, may have offended pious s sensibilities. — The reading peraBa évbev 
(Lachm. Tisch.) is neither satisfactory nor hasit uniform testimony in its favor. 
— Ver. 21. Tisch. 8 has deleted the whole verse, but only after B 8* 33, and a few 
Verss. The great preponderance of testimony is in favor of retaining it, although 
Weiss likewise rejects it. It might have been regarded as inserted from Mark 
ix. 29 had the terms of the two passages coincided more fully. Why it was 
omitted, it is really impossible to say ; it may only have happened accidentally, 
and the omission remains an isolated instance. —- Ver. 22. dvacrped.] Lachm. 
and Tisch. 8 ; cvorped., after B &, 1, Vulg. Codd. of the It. A gloss, in order 
that avacrped. might not be taken in the sense of return. — Ver. 23. éyepfnoetar] 


808 THE GOSPEL OF MATTHEW. 


Lachm.: avacrjcerat, after B, Curss. Or. Chrys. From Mark ix. 31. — Ver. 25. 
ore eionAGev|] Lachm. and Tisch. 8 : eiceAfévta, which is found in &* ; in B itis: 
éAGdvra; in C: bre 7AGov ; in D: eiceAGdvtr, Others have : ére eicHAGov, eiceA- 
évTwv, elceANovtoc. Seeing there is such variety in the readings, we ought to 
prefer, not the simple verb, which B and C concur in adopting, but the com- 
pound form, which is supported by D 8 and the numerous authorities in favor 
of the reading of the Received text ; further, the plural is to be rejected, inas- 
much as it is without adequate testimony and has been inserted from ver. 24 ; 
and finally, the reading ére is to be regarded as an analysis of the participle. 
Consequently the reading eiceAfévra should be adopted. — Ver. 26. For Aéyer 
ait® 6 Ilétpog read, with Lachm. and Tisch. 8, simply eimévto¢ oé, after BC L 
8&8, Verss. Or. Chrys. The reading of the Received text is somewhat of a gloss. 


Ver; 1. Comp. Mark ix. 2 ff. ; Luke viii. 28 ff; 2 Pet. i. 16%. Me? 
juépac @£] Luke ix. 28: doet yuépar ox7G. This doei makes it unnecessary to 
have recourse to any expedient for reconciling the numbers. Chrysostom, 
Jerome, Theophylact, Erasmus, and many others, are of opinion that Luke 
has included the dies a quo and ad quem. — sic bpoc bwyAdv| Since the fourth 
century there has been a tradition that the mountain here referred to was 
mount Tabor, the situation of which, however, was such as altogether to 
preclude this view. If we are to understand that Jesus remained during 
the six days in the neighborhood of Caesarea Philippi, we may, with some 
probability, suppose that the height in question was one of the peaks of 
Hermon, a clump of hills standing to the north-east of that town.—Those 
three disciples were the most intimate friends of Jesus. Comp. xxvi. 37. 
For avagépex, comp. Luke xxiv. 51 ; 2 Macc. vi. 10; Polyb. viii. 31. 1. — 
kar’ idiav| so that they alone accompanied him to this mountain solitude. 

Ver. 2. Merewopd.| was transfigured, in the way about to be described. 
That is to say, His external aspect was changed ;’ His face gleaming like 
the sun, and His raiment being so white that it shone like light. He ap- 
peared in outward heavenly défa, which peyaterdryce (2 Pet. i. 16) was the 
foreshadowing of His future glorified state.* The analogy presented by 
Ex. xxxiv. 29 comes short in this respect, that, whereas the brightness on 
the face of Moses was the result of God’s having appeared before him, in the 
case of Christ it proceeded from His own divine nature and life, the dd&a of 
which radiated from within. — d¢ rd dc] The aspect of it, therefore, was 
luminous, radiant. 

Ver. 3. Avroic] the disciples, ver. 2. They saw conversing with Jesus, 
Moses and Elias, who, as forerunners of the Messiah, represented the law 
and the prophets (Schoettgen, Wetstein). Comp. vv. 5, 8. It was not 
from what Jesus told them afterwards that they came first to know who those 
two were, but they themselves recognized them at once (ver. 4), though not 
from their conversation, as has been arbitrarily supposed (Theophylact). 
The recognition was immediate and directly involved in the marvellous man- 
ifestation itself.—The subject of conversation, so far as the accounts of 


1“*Non substantialis, sed accidentalis 2 John xii. 16, 23, xvii. 5, xxii. 24; 2 Cor. 
fuit transformatio,’’ Calovius. iii. 18; Matt. xiii. 43. 


CHAP. XVII, 4,.-d. 309 


Matthew and Mark are concerned, does not appear to have been once in- 
quired into. According to Ebrard, Jesus communicated to the fathers of 
the old dispensation the blessed intelligence of his readiness to redeem them 
by His death. According to Luke ix. 31, Moses and Elias converse with 
Jesus about His impending death. 

Ver. 4. ’Azoxpc0.] see note on xi. 25. Taking occasion from what he 
now saw before him, he proceeded to say. —xaédv éorw, x.7.2.] 18 usually 
interpreted thus: ‘‘ Amoenus est, in quo commoremur, locus” (Fritzsche, 
Keim) ; or, what is much to the same effect, it is referred—particularly by 
Chrysostom, Theophylact, Euth. Zigabenus, Erasmus—to the seewrity of the 
place, protected as it was by the two cclestial visitants, in contrast to Jeru- 
salem, where Jesus was destined to suffer. But, inasmuch as the terms 
used by Peter are yuac¢ (not juiv) and the simple eiva: (not pévecv) ; further, 
inasmuch as what he says is occasioned by the presence of Moses and Elias, 
and has reference to them, as is likewise proved by the following «i 6é2exc, 
k.7.4., Which implies that he wishes to do something towards enabling Jesus 
to have a longer interview with them,—it is preferable, with Paulus, 
Baumgarten-Crusius, Clostermann, Weiss, Volkmar, to interpret as follows : 
It is highly opportune that we (disciples) happen to be here (in which case, 
therefore, the 7uac is emphatic) ; accordingly, I would like to erect (orjou, 
see critical remarks) tabernacles (out of the brushwood growing around) for 
you here, with a view toa more prolonged stay. The transition to the 
singular is in keeping with Peter’s temperament ; he would like to make the 
tabernacles. 

Ver. 5 ff. "Idod cat . . . dod] lively way of,introducing the various points 
of importance. — vedéAn dwrewg| a luminous, clear, bright cloud, represented 
in Matthew as, without doubt, a marvellous phenomenon, not in itself cer- 
tainly, but in connection with the incident which it accompanies. — é7eo- 
ciacev| A luminous cloud overshadows them, casts a kind of light and shade over 
their forms, so that they are rendered less clear than they were before the 
cloud intervened. Olshausen unwarrantably fancies that éreck. has been 
employed in consequence of the light having been so strong as to dazzle the 
eyes and affect the sight. — airotc] viz., Jesus, Moses, and Elias (ver. 4). 
The disciples hear the voice from out the cloud (vv. 5, 6), are therefore not 
to be regarded as being within it, as is likewise manifest a priori from the 
fact that the cloud, as was so frequently the case in the Old Testament, is 
here the sacred symbol of the divine presence,! and therefore accompanies 
those three divine personages as a cyueiov for the disciples, on whose account 
likewise the voice sounds from the cloud. This in answer to Olearius, 
- Wolf, Bengel, Baumgarten-Crusius, who refer airot¢ to the disciples ; and 
to Clericus, who refers it to all who were present. — 9wv7, k.7./.] no less the 
voice of God than that in iii. 17. —dxotere aitov (see critical remarks) is 
the divine ratification of the words of Moses in Deut. xviii. 15, according 
to their Messianic import. However, the hearing (i.e., faith and obedience) 
is the point on which stress is to be laid, as is evident from its being put 





1 Wetstein on this passage, comp. Fea, ad Hor. Od. i. 2. 31. 


310 THE GOSPEL OF MATTHEW. 


first. This command is nov in order (not so, as yet, in ili. 17), coming as 
it does at a time when Jesus had attained to the full dignity of His pro- 
phetic office, but when, at the same time, the prospect of what awaited 
Him was calculated to put the daxotey of the disciples to the severest test. 
—— Vv. 6, 7 occur only in Matthew. Comp. Dan. x. 9f. ; Rev. i. 17.— 
jwaro|. ‘* Tactus familiaris et efficax,” ‘‘ the familiar and effective touch,” 
Bengel. 

Ver. 9. “Opaua] the thing seen, spectaculum.' Used in the LXX. with refer- 
ence to whatever is seen in vision by a prophet. — é« vexpov] from Sheol, as 
the abode rév vexpov.? The reason of the prohibition can only be the same 
as in xvi. 20, where see note. According to the mythical view (see obser- 
vations after ver. 12), it was intended to explain the circumstance of a nar- 
rative composed in a later age, and, nevertheless, one which proceeded 
from the three witnesses. 

Ver. 10. Oiv] can have no other. reference than to the foregoing prohibi- 
tion (comp. xix. 7): ‘‘Seeing that we are forbidden to tell any one about 
the appearing of Elias which we have just witnessed, and so on, what 
reason, then, have the scribes for saying that Elias must first come (before 
the Messiah appears, to establish His kingdom) ?” Does it not follow from 
Thy prohibition that this teaching of the scribes must be erroneous, seeing 
that, if it were not so, Thou wouldst not have enjoined us to keep silence 
regarding this manifestation of Elias? This is likewise in harmony with 
the answer of Jesus, which is to this effect : ‘‘That teaching is quite correct; 
but the Elias whom it speaks of as being the Messiah’s forerunner is not 
the prophet who has just been seen upon the mount, but John the Baptist, 
whom they did not recognize, and so on.” This view is so entirely in 
accordance with the context as to exclude any others, as, for example, that’ 
of Euth. Zigabenus, Erasmus, Kuinoel, who, emphasizing rpérov, interpret 
thus : dcatioi yp. Aéy., Ore "Haiav ypy éAbeiv mpd Tov Xptotov; Tac ody ovK HAOEv 
ovto¢ mpd cov; or that which ascribes to the disciples the idea, of which 
there is not the remotest hint, that Christ is going to be revealed before the 
world in His glory, and that therefore there is really no further room for 
the manifestation and the services of Elias ;* or that of Grotius, Michaclis, 
Fritzsche, Lange, Olshausen, Bleek, Hengstenberg, who understand the 
question of the disciples as referring to the circumstance that Elias had not 
remained, but had so quickly disappeared again (it was believed, though of 
this the question contains no hint whatever, that Elias would teach the 
Jews, settle the disputes among their instructors, restore the pot of manna 
and Aaron’s rod, and so on) ;* or, again, that of Chrysostom, Theophylact, 
Neander, Krabbe, Ebrard, who suppose that the object of the question was 
to know whether the manifestation of Elias, which the scribes had in view, 
was that which had just taken place, or whether it was some other one yet 
to come ; or, lastly, the expedient of Schleiermacher and Strauss, who 


1 Acts vii. 31; Sir. xlili. 1; Xen. Cy7. iii. Winer, p. 117 [E. T. 153}. 
8.66; de re equestr. ix. 4; Dem. 1406. 26; 3 Hofmann, Schriftbew. II. 1, p. 518. 
Pollux, ii. 54. 4 Lightfoot on this passage; Winzer, de 
2On the omission of the article, see amokatactace mavTwy, II., 1821, p. 9. 


GuaAPe val. bl al: oul 


think that the whole conversation originated in the disappointment felt in 
consequence of the prediction regarding the coming of Elias not having 
been fulfilled, and that it has only found its way into the present connection 
through an erroneous process of combination. According to Késtlin, p. 
75, obv does not refer back to the transfiguration at all, but seems to say : 
‘Seeing that the Messiah is already come,” which is the idea supposed to 
be contained in xvi, 13-27. He thinks the connection has been interrupted 
by the evangelist interpolating the story of the transfiguration between xvi. 
27 and xvii. 10. 

Ver. 11. In His reply, Jesus admits the correctness of the teaching of the 
scribes in regard to this matter, and at the same time supplements the quo- 
tation made from it by the disciples (by adding x. aroxat. r.), in which 
supplement the use of the future-present épyerac and the future dzoxaracr. 
are to be justified on the ground that they are the ipsissima verba of the 
teaching in question. ‘‘ Unquestionably it is precisely as they say : Eliasis 
coming and will restore everything again.” Inasmuch as what is here 
meant is the work of the coming Hlias, and not the whole moral work of 
the Messiah in regenerating the world (as in Acts iii. 21), the aroxatacracu¢ 
mdvrwy, an expression taken from the rendering of Mal. iv. 6 by the LXX., 
refers, in the sense of the scribes, to the restitutio in integrum (for such is the 
meaning of the word, see note on Acts iii. 21) of the entire theocratic order 
of things by way of preparation for the Messiah, in which case we are not to 
think merely of a moral regeneration of the people, but also of the restora- 
tion of outward objects of a sacred character (such as the urna mannae, and 
soon). Jesus, on the other hand, knowing as He does that the promised 
coming of Elias has been fulfilled in the Baptist (xi. 14), refers to the 
preaching and preparatory labors of the latter, in which he believes the 
axoxatacthoe mavta to have been realized in the highest sense, and in the 
way most in keeping with the prophet’s own words in Mal. iv. 6 (Sir. xlviii. 
10 ; Luke i. 17, iii. 1). The coming of the real Elias, who is expected to 
appear before the second advent (Hilary, Chrysostom, Augustine, Theophy- 
lact, Euth. Zigabenus, the majority of the older Catholic expositors, like- 
wise Arnoldi, Schegg), is taught by Jesus neither here nor elsewhere. See, 
on the contrary, ver. 12 f., xi. 14. This also in answer to Lechler in the 
Stud. u. Krit. 1854, p. 831. 

Ver. 12. Oi« éxéyvocar airéy] that is, as the expected Elias. The subject 
is the ypaupareic, ver. 10. —év ait] towards him, not classical, but comp. 
LXX. Gen. xl. 14 ; Dan. xi. 7 ; Luke xxiii. 31. —iéca é0éAnoar] indicating 
the purely arbitrary manner in which they treated him, in contradistinction 
to the way in which God desired that he should have been received. 


Remarx.— The incident of the transfiguration has been regarded as a vision by so 
early a writer.as Tertullian, c. Marc. iv. 22. by Herder, Gratz, Krabbe, Bleek, 
Weizsiicker, Pressensé, Steinmeyer ; it would have been nearer the truth if a 
distinction had been made between the real and the visionary elements contain- 
ed in it. We have no vision, but a reality in the glorious change which came 
over the outward appearance of Jesus, vy. 1, 2, that objective element to which 


alee THE GOSPEL OF MATTHEW. 


the ecstatic subjective manifestation owed its origin. On the other hand, we 
cannot but regard as visionary the appearing of Moses and Elias, and that not 
merely in consequence of d¢@y, ver. 3 (Acts ii. 3, vii. 26; 1 Tim. iii. 16; 1 Cor. 
xv. 5 ff.), but owing to the vanishing away of the heavenly visitants in the cloud, 
and the impossibility of any bodily manifestation, at least of Moses (whose 
resurrection would, according to Deut. xxxiv. 5 f., have to be presupposed.! 
Moreover, Matthew and Mark themselves represent the manifestation of both in 
such a way, that it is impossible to assert that they regarded it in the light of 
an actual fact; notice, on the contrary, the different modes of conception as 
implied in kai petenopoodn Eutpoober aitav (not: x. 6¢9n avToicg petauyoppwfeic) 
and An avroi¢ Mwoic, ete. Only in the case of Luke is it manifest that he has 
followed a tradition which has divested the incident of its visionary character 
(Luke ix. 30, 31). The of course obvious and common objection, that three 
persons must be supposed to have witnessed the same phenomena and to have 
heard ‘the same voice, is deprived of its force if it is conceded, as must neces- 
sarily be done, that a supernatural agency was here at work with a view to en- 
able the three leading disciples to have a glimpse beforehand of the approach- 
ing glory of Him who was more to them than Moses and the prophets. How- 
ever, it is attempting too much to attempt to show the higher naturalism of the 
incident (Lange, ZL. J. Il. p. 904 ff., thinks that the heavenly nature of Jesus 
flashed forth from under the earthly ; that the disciples had actually had a peep 
into the spirit world, and had seen Moses and Elias, which was rendered pos- 
sible in their case through the peculiar frame of Christ’s mind and the inter- 
course with those spirits which He enjoyed), in opposition to which Ewald insists 
that the event was altogether of an ideal character ; that the eternal perfection 
of the kingdom of God was unquestionably disclosed to view, in such a manner, 
however, that everything of a lower nature, and which was at all calculated to 
suggest the form which the narrative ultimately assumed, was lost sight of 
amid the pure light ofa higher sphere of things (Gesch. Chr. p. 462). To 
assume as the foundation of the story (Baumgarten-Crusius) only some inward 
manifestation or other in Jesus Himself, such as led to His obtaining a glimpse 
of the glory that was to follow His death, is as decidedly at variance with the 
statements of the Gospels as it is to trace the matter to a vision ina dream (Rau, 
Symbola ad ill. ev. de metamorph., ete., 1797; Gabler in the neuest. theol. Journ. 


1 Tt is thus that Origen, Jerome, and other 
Fathers consistently argue. According to 
Hilgenfeld, the ‘‘ Ascension of Moses” 
(N. T. extra canon. I. p. 96; Messias Judaeor. 
p. 459) was already known to the evange- 
list ; but the Ascensio Mosis belongs, in any 
ease, toa somewhat later period. Grotius 
saw himself driven to adopt the expedient 
of supposing that ‘‘haec corpora videri 
possunt a deo in hunc usum asservata,”’ 
“these bodies are able to be seen, having 
been preserved by God for this purpose,” 
very muchas Ambrose had maintained that 
the body of Moses had been exempted from 
putrefaction. According to Calvin, God had 
raised the bodies ad tempus. Thomas and 
several other expositors refer the appearing 
of Moses to the category indicated by the 


words: ‘“‘sicut angeli videntur.”’ Similarly 
Delitzsch, Psychol. p. 427 [E. T. 499], accord- 
ing to whom the form in which Moses 
appeared, and which bore a resemblance to 
His earthly body, was the immaterial prod- _ 
uct of his spiritualized psychic nature. 
Gess, with greater indefiniteness, speaks of 
the manifestation as a coming forth on the 
part of Moses and Elias from their state of 
invisibility. But neither Delitzsch nor 
Gess satisfies the requirements of the words 
eT’ avtod ovAAad., Which in any case presup- 
pose a glorified corporeity, or else it amounts 
to nothing else than a mere appearance. 
Comp. Beza, who adds: nisi malumus eesta- 
ticam fuisse visionem, ‘* unless we prefer to 
regard it asa trance-like vision.” 


CHAPS XVII:, 12, 313 


1798, p. 517 ff., Kuinoel, Neander), in connection with which view some have 
likewise had recourse to the idea of a thunderstorm (Gabler), and the presence 
of two secret followers (Kuinoel), This way of looking at the matter is not 
favored by Luke ix. 32. No less inconsistent with the gospel narrative is the 
hypothesis of a secret interview with two unknown personages (Venturini, Paulus, 
Hase, Schleiermacher), in connection with which, again, a good deal has been 
made of atmospheric illumination, and the effect of the shadows that were pro- 
jected (Paulus ; Theile, z. Biogr. J. p. 55; Ammon, L. J. p. 302 ff.). The 
mythical view (Strauss, Scholten, Keim)—which regards the narrative as a legend- 
ary invention, and substantially ascribes its origin to a desire to see the glory 
of Moses on Sinai repeated in a higher form in the case of Jesus, and to represent 
the latter as the fulfilment of the law and the prophets—can least of all be 
justified here, where it is not only at variance with the studied unanimity of 
the evangelists in regard to the date of the occurrence, but also with the fact 
that the testimony of the three apostles must have gone far to prevent the myth 
from finding its way into the circle of their brethren ; while, as regards the 
‘silence of John, it is certainly not to be explained on anti-docetic grounds (in 
answer to Schneckenburger, Beitr. p. 62 ff., see Strauss, IT. p. 250), but it is 
explicable, to say the least of it, on the ground of his ideal conception of Christ’s 
mundane défa, and no more disproves the reality of the incident in question 
than his silence regarding so many other important historical facts already re- 
corded by the Synoptists. Further, we must regard as purely subjective, and 
subversive of the intention and meaning of the evangelists, not merely the 
rationalistic explanation of the incident, according to which Jesus is represented 
as telling the three disciples in what relation He stood to Moses and Elias, and as 
thereby bringing them ‘into the light of His Messianic calling” (Schenkel), but 
likewise the imaginary notion of an admonitory symbol, after the manner of 
Rey. i, 12 ff., xi. 3 ff., the historical basis of which is supposed to be contained 
in the fact that Peter and the first disciples had seen the risen Lord appear in 
heavenly radiance (Volkmar) ; and lastly, also the allegorical view (Weisse), ac- 
cording to which we are understood to have before us the symbolical conception, 
originating with the three enraptured apostles themselves, of the light which 
then dawned upon them in regard to the mission of Jesus, especially in regard 
to His relation to the old theocracy.—But, according to Bruno Bauer, the inci- 
dent is to be regarded as the product of the conviction on the part of the church, 
that, in the principle on which it is founded, the powers of the*past have found 
their glorified centre of unity.—The passage 2 Pet. i. 16-18 can be of no 
service in the way of confirming the historical character of the incident, except 
for those who see no reason to reject this Epistle as spurious ; but it is of great 
importance, partly as furnishing, all the same, an ancient testimony in favor 
otf the occurrence itself, and the significance attached to it asa historical event ; 
partly in reference to the telic point of view from which it is to be regarded, 
namely, as a foreshadowing of the impending déta of the Lord, in which He is 
to come back again, and into which His most intimate disciples were in this 
wonderful way privileged to gaze previous to His sufferings, in order that they 
might be strengthened for fulfilling the difficult task that would devolve upon 
them after His ascension. So far as the object of the incident is concerned, it 
must have been intended expressly for the disciples, as is evident from dxovere 
avrov.—According to what has been said above, and judging from what is 
stated in ix, 31 as to the subject of conversation, it may be affirmed that Luke’s 


314 THE GOSPEL OF MATTHEW. 


account bears the impress of a later stage of development (Fritzsche, Strauss, de 
Wette, Weisse, Ewald, Weiss), so that in point of originality we must give 
Matthew the preference (in answer to Schulz, Schleiermacher, Holtzmann, and 
others), and that even over Mark (comp. Ewald, Késtlin, p. 90; Keim, TL. Dp. 
588). See also note on Mark ix. 2 ff. [See note X., p. 320 et seq. ] 


Ver. 14. Notwithstanding divergence in other respects, the healing of the 
lunatic (ceAyviag., see note on iv. 24) comes next in order in all the three Syn- 
optists (Mark ix. 14 ff. ; Luke ix. 37 ff.),—a circumstance which also mili- 
tates against the mythical view of the transfiguration. — aitév] Comp. Mark 
i. 40, x. 17. The aceusative is to be understood as conveying the idea that 
He was directly touched by the man, as much as to say : he clasped Him by 
the knees." 

Ver. 15. The lunatic, whose malady was regarded as the result of demoni- 
acal possession (ver. 18; Mark v. 16; Luke v. 39), was evidently suffering 
from epilepsy, and, according to Mark, deprived of the power of speech as 
well. —kaxoc racyew| tobe ill (opposite of ed racy.), is likewise very common 
among classical writers.? 

Ver. 17. O unbelieving and perverse generation! Comp. Phil. ii. 15. By 
this Jesus does not mean the scribes (Calvin), but is aiming at His disciples, 
who are expected to apply the exclamation to themselves, in consequence of 
their not being able to cure the lad of his disease. In no sparing fashion, 
but filled with painful emotion, He ranks them, owing to their want of an 
energetic faith, in the category of the unbelieving generation, and hence it 
is that He addresses it. Bengel fitly observes : ‘‘severo elencho discipuli 
accensentur turbae,” ‘‘ by a severe rebuke the disciples are reckoned as part 
of the crowd.” That the disciples are intended (Fritzsche, Baumgarten- 
Crusius, Steinmeyer, Volkmar), is likewise evident from ver. 20. They 
wanted the requisite amount of confidence in the miraculous powers con- 
ferred upon them by Christ. The strong terms dmoroc¢ x. dveotpayp. (Deut. 
xxxli. 5; Phil. ii. 5, ii. 15), are to be explained from the deep emotion of 
Jesus. Nor can the people be meant, who are not concerned at all, any 
more than the father of the sufferer, who, in fact, invoked the help of Jesus 
because he had faith in Him. The words are consequently to be referred 
neither to all who were present (Paulus, Kuinoel, Olshausen, Krabbe, Bleek, 
Ewald), nor to the father (Chrysostom, Theophylact, Euth. Zigabenus, 
Grotius), nor to him and the people (Keim), in which latter case many go 
the length of holding that the disciples are exculpated, and the blame of the 
failure imputed to the father himself.* In opposition to the context (vv. 16, 
20). Neander and de Wette explain the words in the sense of John iy. 48, 
as though Jesus were reflecting upon those who as yet have not known what 
it is to come to Him under a sense of their deepest wants, and so on. — éwe 
nore, k.7.A.| a passing touch of impatience in the excitement of the moment : 





1 Comp. mpockuvety Twa, mpoomitvey TLva, 3 ov THS exeivwy agbeveias ToTOUTOY TO TTat- 
mpoomintery youu Tivos (Pflugk, ad Hur. Hee. oa, Ocov THS ons amotias, “ this failure was 
339; Kiihner, II. 1, p. 251. not due to their weakness so much as to 


2 Hom. Od. xvi. 275; Plat. Menex. p. 244 your unbelief,’’ Theophylact. 
B; Xen. Anad. iii. 3.7; Herod. iii. 146. ' 


CHAP. XVII., 18-21. 315 


How long is the time going to last during which I must be amongst you and 
bear with your weakness of faith, want of receptivity, and so on ? — ¢épere] 
like what precedes, is addressed to the disciples ; it was to them that the 
lunatic had been brought, ver. 16. This in answer to Fritzsche, who thinks 
that Jesus ‘‘generatim loquens” refers to the father. 

Ver. 18. ’Ereriu. aito] He rebuked him, namely, the demon (Fritzsche, 
Ewald), reproached him for having taken possession of the boy. Comp. 
vili. 26. For this prolepsis in the reference of aizé¢ (which Vulgate, Theo- 
phylact, de Wette, Winer, Bleek, refer to the lunatic).1—a76 rt. opac'éx] as 
in Xv. 28, ix. 22. 

Ver. 20. The disciples ought to have applied to themselves the general ex- 
clamation in ver. 17. This they failed to do, hence their question. But the 
azioria With which Jesus now charges them is to be understood in a relative 
sense, while the ziorc, of which it is the negation, means simply faith in 
Jesus Christ, the depositary of supernatural power, so that, in virtue of their 
fellowship with His life, the disciples, as His servants and the organs of His 
power, were enabled to operate with greater effect in proportion to the 
depth and energy of the faith with which they could confide in Him. — éay 
éynte] if you have (not : had). —6e¢ xéxxov ov.| found likewise in Rabbinical 
writers as a figurative expression for a very small quantity of anything. 
Lightfoot on xiii. 32. The point of the comparison does not lie in the stim- 
ulative quality of the mustard (Augustine ; on the other hand, Maldonatus). 
—To remove mountains, a figurative expression for : to accomplish extraordi- 
nary results, 1 Cor. xiii, 2.2 For legends in regard to the actual removing of 
mountains, see Calovius. —ovdév] the hyperbole of popular speech. For 
aduvat., comp. Job xlii. 2. 

Ver. 21. Totro 76 yévoc] this species of demons to which the one just expelled 
belongs.* But the rodro, used with special reference to the fact of its being a 
case of epilepsy, must be intended to specify a kind of demons which it is 
peculiarly difficult to exorcize.— év rpocevyh kx. vyoteia] inasmuch as the 
rioric is thereby strengthened and elevated, and attains to that pitch which 
is necessary in order to the casting out of swch demons. The climax in vv. 
20 and 21 may be represented thus : if you have only a slender amount of 
faith, you will, no doubt, be able to accomplish things of an extraordinary and 
seemingly impossible nature ; but, in order to expel spirits of so stubborn a 
character as this, you require to have such a degree of faith as can only be 
reached by means of prayer and fasting. You have neglected the spiritual 
preparation that is necessary to the attainment of so lofty a faith. Comp. 
Acts xiv. 23. Prayer and fast’ng are here represented as means for promot- 
ing faith, not as good works, which are of themselves effectual in dealing with 
the demons (Schegg and the older Catholics). Paulus and Ammon incor- 
rectly suppose that the prayer and fasting are required of the sick persons 
themselves, with a view to some dietetic and psychological effect or other 


1 See Fritzsche, Conject. p. 11 f.; Borne- $ Otherwise, Euth. Zigabenus: 70 yévos 
mann, ad Xen. Symp. viii. 34. Tov Sayovwv mavTwr, So Chrysostom, 
2 Lightfoot on xxi. 21; Buxtorf, Lex. Talm- Theophylact, Elsner, Fritzsche, Bleek. 
p. 1653. 


316 THE GOSPEL OF MATTHEW. 


being produced upon their bodies ; while Chrysostom, Theophylact, and 
Euth. Zigabenus are of opinion that they are demanded not merely from the 
healer, but also from the patient, as necessary weapons to be used against the 
demon. Inasmuch as éxropeterar is, according to the context, the correlative 
of éxBareiv, ver. 19 (comp. also é&7AGev, ver. 18), we must likewise discard the 
view of Ewald, who thinks that in Matthew there is an allusion to a class of 
men whose character is such that they cannot be induced to set to work but 
with fasting and prayer. Comp, on the contrary, éxzop., Acts xix. 12 (and 
Mark ix. 29: é&eA@eiv). — Those who adopt the mythical view of the whole 
incident (Strauss) pretend to find the origin of the legend in 2 Kings iv. 29 
ff., which is no less unwarrantable than the interpretation, according to 
which it is treated asa symbolical narrative, intended to rebuke the want of 
faith on the part of the disciples (Scholten), or as a didactic figure as an ad- j 
monition of the hidden Christ for an increase of faith amid the violent de- 
moniacal excesses of the time (Volkmar). Moreover, the somewhat more cir- 
cumstantial account of Mark is of a stamp so peculiar, is so clear and full of 
meaning, that it is not to be regarded as a later amplification, but the 
account in Matthew (and Luke) is rather to be looked upon as an abridg- 
ment of the former. j 


Vv. 22, 23.’ While they were still in Galilee,? and before they entered 
Capernaum (ver. 24), Jesus once more (comp. xvi. 21) intimated to His dis- 
ciples His approaching sufferings, death, and resurrection. This is not a 
meaningless repetition of xvi. 21 (Késtlin, Hilgenfeld); but this matter 
was introduced again because Jesus knew how much they required to be 
prepared for the impending crisis. — ei¢ yeipag avbp.] intomen’s hands, uttered 
with a painful feeling, sensible as He was of the contrast between such a 
fate and what He knew to be His divine dignity. It was in keeping with 
the feelings now present to the mind of Jesus, not to indicate that fate with 
so much detail as on the former occasion (xvi. 21).—éAur#3ynoav ofddpa] there- 
fore not impressed by the announcement of the resurrection, although it is 
said to have been made with so much clearness and precision. This an- 
nouncement, however, is not found in Luke. See note on xvi. 21. 

Ver. 24 ff. Peculiar to Matthew. — After the return from the Babylonian 
captivity, all males among the Jews of twenty years of age and upwards 
(on the ground of the command in Ex. xxx. 13 f.; comp. 2 Chron. xxiv. 
6; Neh. x. 32 ; 2 Kings xii. 4 ff.) were required to contribute annually the 
sum of half a shekel, or two Attic drachmae, or an Alexandrian drachma 
(LXX. Gen. xxiii. 15 ; Josh. vii. 21), about half a thaler (1s. 6d. English 
money), by way of defraying the expenses connected with the temple ser- 
vices.* After the destruction of the temple the money went to the Capitol.* 
The time for collecting this tax was the fifteenth of the month Adar.° 
Certain expositors have supposed the payment herein question to have been 


1 Comp. Mark ix. 80 ff. ; Luke ix. 43 ff. Alterth. p. 403; Keim, II. p. 599 f. 
2 avactped., Xen. Cyr. viii. 8. 7, Mem. iv. 4 Joseph. vii. 6. 6. 
8.8; Thue. viii. 94; Josh. v. 5. 5 See Tract. Schekalim i. 3, ii. 7; Ideler, 


3 See Saalschiitz, Mos. R. p. 291 f.; Ewald, Chronol. I. pp. 488, 509. 


CHAP. XVII... 25: 317 


a civil one, exacted by the Roman government—in other words, a poll-taa.! 
This, however, is precluded, not merely by the use of the customary term 
7a didpayua, Which was well known to the reader as the temple-tax, but 
likewise by the incongruity which would thereby be introduced into the 
succeeding argument, through making it appear as though Jesus had 
strangely and improperly classed Himself among the kings of this world, with 
a view to prove with how much reason He could claim to be free. Even 
had He regarded Himself as David’s son, He would have been wrong in argu- 
ing thus, while, so far as the case before us is concerned, He was, to all in- 
tents and purposes, one of the aAAdrpior. — oi... AauBavovtec] used as a 
substantive : the collectors. That there were such, though Wieseler denies 
it, is not only evident from the nature of the case, seeing that it was not 
possible for everybody to go to Jerusalem, but is also proved by statements 
in the Tr. Schekalim (‘‘ trapezitae in unaquaque civitate,” etc.); see also 
Lightfoot. The plural ra didpayua indicates the large number of didrachmae 
that were collected, seeing that every individual contributed one ; and the 
article points to the tax as one that was well known. In the question put by 
the collectors (which question shows that this happened to be the time for 
collecting, but that Jesus had not paid as yet, though it is impossible to 
determine whether or not the question was one of a humane character, 
which would depend entirely upon the tone in which it was put) the plural 
ra didpayua indicates that the payment had to be repeated annually, to which 
the present redei likewise points. That the collectors should not have asked 
Jesus Himself, and that Peter should have happened to be the particular 
disciple whom they did ask, are probably to be regarded merely as accident- 
al circumstances. But why did they ash at all, and why ina dubious tone ? 
They may have assumed or supposed that Jesus would claim to rank with 
the priests (who did not consider themselves liable for temple-tax, 77. 
Schekal. i. 4), seeing that His peculiarly holy, even His Messianic, reputa- 
tion cannot certainly have remained unknown to them. 

Ver. 25. From the vai of Peter it is clear that Jesus had hitherto been in 
the habit of paying the tax. — rpoé¢dacev] Since it is stated in ver. 24 that 
the collectors came to Peter, and as one is at a loss to see why, if Jesus had 
been present at the same time, they should not have asked Himself, it 
follows that the evangelist must have ascribed what Jesus says to Peter to 
His immediate knowledge of the thoughts of others.? Instead of zpoéodacev 
Aéyov * we might also have had rpogddcag édeye.t— Sivwv].° Comp. Mark 
xiv. 37.—réAn] duty upon goods. — kyvooc] Tax upon individuals and 
landed property, xxii. 17, 19, the Greek ¢gépoc in contradistinction to réAec 
(indirect tax). Comp. note on Luke xx. 22; Rom. xiii. 7.— amd tov 
aidorp.| from those who are not members of their family, ¢.e., from their 
subjects. 


1 See Wolf and Calovius ; and of modern 3 Arist. Hecl. 884 ; Thue. vii. 73. 3. 
writers, consult especially, Wieseler, 4 Plat. Rep. vi. p. 500 A; Thuc. viii. 51. 1. 
Chronol. Synopse, p. 265 ff., and Beitr. p. See Kiihner, II. 1, p. 626f. 

108 ff. 5‘ Anpellatio quasi domestica et famili- 


2 Comp. Chrysostom, Theophylact, Euth. aris,’’ Bengel. 
Zigabenus, Steinmeyer, Ewald, Keim. 


318 THE GOSPEL OF MATTHEW. 


Ver. 26. “Apaye. . . vioi] Application: Therefore I, as the Son of God, 
am exempt from the tax which is payable to Jehovah, 7.e., to His temple. 
The inference in this argument, which is of the nature of a dilemma, and 
which proceeds on the self-consciousness of Jesus regarding His supernatu- 
ral sonship (comp. note on xxii. 45), is an inference a minori ad majus, as is 
indicated by oi Bac. rc yc. Tf, indeed, in the case of earthly kings their 
sons are exempted from the taxes they impose, it follows that the Son of the 
heavenly King, the Son of God, can be under no obligation to pay the taxes 
which He imposes (for the temple). The plural oi vioi is justifiable in the 
general proposition as a generic (comp. note on il. 20) indefinite plural, but 
the application must be made to Jesus only, not to Peter as well,’ inasmuch 
as the predicate, in the sense corresponding to the argument, was applicable 
to Jesus alone, while vioi, taken in the wider spiritual sense, would embrace 
not merely Peter and the apostles, but those believers in general whose con- 
nection with the Jewish temple was not broken off (John iv. 21) till a some- 
what later period. —The principle laid down by Jesus, that He is under 
no obligation to pay temple-tax on the ground of His being the Son of 
God, is, in thesi, to be simply recognized, and requires no justification (in 
answer to de Wette); but, in prazi, He waives His claim to exemption, and 
that from a regard to the offence which He would otherwise have given, in- 
asmuch as the fact of His divine sonship, and the peifov eivac tov iepod (xii. 
6) which it involved, were not recognized beyond the circle of believers, 
and He would therefore have been looked upon exclusively as an Israelite, 
as which He was, of course, subject to the law (Gal. iv. 4). If on some 
other occasion we find Him asserting His Messianic right to subordinate 
certain legal enactments to His own will (see xii. 8; John vii. 21 ff.), it 
must be borne in mind that in such cases He had to do with enemies, in 
answer to whose accusation He had to appeal to the authority implied in His 
being commissioned to bring about the Messianic fulfilment of the law (v. 
17). This commission did not supersede His personal obligation, imposed 
upon Him in His birth and circumcision, to comply with the law, but only 
gave to His obedience the higher ideal and perfect character which distin- 
guished it. — éAeSepac] put well forward for sake of emphasis.” 

Ver. 27. But in order that we may not scandalize them (the collectors), that 
we may not give them occasion to misjudge us, as though we despised the 
temple.* Jesus thus includes others along with Himself, not because He re- 
garded Peter as strictly entitled to claim exemption, nor because He was an- 
ticipating the time when His followers generally would cease to have such 
obligations in regard to the temple,* but because Peter, who, in like man- 
ner, had his residence in Capernaum (viii. 14), had not paid, as yet, any 
more than Himself. — ropevdeic] belongs to elc tv Yadracc. (to the sea), 
which latter Fritzsche connects with $dae, which, however, would have the 


1 Paulus, Olshausen, Ewald, Lange, Hof- 3 Bengel: ‘‘illos, qui non noverant jus 
mann, Schriftbew. II. 1, p. 181, Gess, Keim. Jesu,” ‘‘those who did not know of the 
2 The idea that the 5éépaxuov is given to rights of Jesus.” 
God, is found likewise in Joseph. Anté. 4 Dorner, Jesu siindlose Volk. p. 37. 


XViili. 4. 1. 


CHAP. XVII, 27. 319 


effect of rendering it unduly emphatic. —dyxorpov] It is a jfish-hook,! and 
not a net, which Jesus asks him to throw in, because in this instance it was 
a question of one particular fish. Consequently this is the only occasion in 
the Gospels in which mention is made of a fishing with a hook. — rév dva- 
favra] out of the depths. — xpérov] the adjective : the jirst fish that has come 
up. —apov| lift it with the hook owt on the land. Jesus is therefore aware 
that this one will be the first to snap at the hook. — eiphaeug oratgpa] that 
is, in the mouth of the fish. The stater wasa coin equivalent to four drach- 
mae, for which reason it is likewise called a rerpddpayuoc, and must not be 
confounded with the gold stater (20 drachmae). — dvri iuod «. cov] not an 
incorrect expression for «ai avzi éuov (Fritzsche), but dvr is used with refer- 
ence to the original enactment, Ex. xxx. 12 ff., where the half-shekel is rep- 
resented as a ransom for the soul. Comp. xx. 28. With condescending 
accommodation, Jesus includes Himself in this view. 


Remarx.—The naturalistic interpretation of this incident, so far as its mirac- 
ulous features are concerned,—which, in a teleological respect, and on account 
of the magical character of the occurrence, Schleiermacher, LZ. J. p. 228, also 
regarded with suspicion, —has, in conformity with earlier attempts of the kind, 
been advocated above all by Paulus and Ammon, and consists substantially in 
supposing that edpyoe¢ otar. was accomplished by the selling of the fish. But 
whether avoigag 76 oréua adrov be referred to the act of taking the fish from the hook 
(Paulus, Komment.), or even to Peter as offering it for sale, in which case airop 
is said to signify on the spot, we always have, as the result, an incongruous 
representation and unwarrantable perversion of what, for the narrative of a 
miracle, is extremely simple and appropriate, to say nothing of so enormous a 
price forasingle fish, and that especially in Capernaum, though Paulus, in spite 
of the zporov, understands the iy$vv in a collective sense. The mythical mode 
of explaining away this incident (Strauss, IT. p. 184, according to whom it is “a 
legendary offshoot of tales of the sea’’)—the occasion of which is to be found 
partly in a take of fish by Peter, partly in the stories current about jewels (for 
example, the ring of Polycrates, Herod. iii. 42) having been found in the inside 
of fish—breaks down in consequence of its own arbitrariness, and the absence 
of any thought or Old Testament event in which the myth might be supposed 
to originate. Again, it would be to make it simply a curiosity (in answer to 

, trauss in Hilgenfeld’s Zeitschr. 1863, p. 293 ff.) to treat it as an invention for 
the purpose of exhibiting the superiority of Jesus over the circumstances to 
which He was accommodating Himself. But Hase’s hypothesis, that what 
was a figurative way of expressing the blessing that attended the labor by 
means of which the little sum was handily raised, has been transformed, in the 
popular legend, into an apocryphal miracle, is inconsistent with the fact that 
the actual miraculous capture of the fish is not once mentioned, an omission 
which is scarcely in keeping with the usual character of apocryphal narratives. 
Lastly, the view is no less unfounded which derives the narrative from a par- 
able, in which our Lord is supposed to be representing the contrast between 
the righteousness of faith that distinguishes the children of God, and the legal 
righteousness of those who are only slaves (Weisse, Evangelienfr. p. 263 f£.). 


1Hom. Od. iv. 369; Herod. ii. 70, al. 


320 THE GOSPEL OF MATTHEW. 


Besides, this would be to import into the passage the Pauline contrast of a 
similar kind. In short, the incident must continue to be regarded as in every 
way as historical as the evangelist meant it to be. As for the difficulties in- 
volved in so doing, such as that of the fish snatching the hook with the stater 
in its mouth (not in the stomach), or that implied in the circumstance that, of 
all places, Capernaum was the one where Jesus had no need whatever to have 
recourse to miraculous means for raising the little sum required, they must 
likewise continue unsolved, belonging as they do to those mysteries that are 
connected with miracles generally ; and while not justifying us in discarding 
the narrative without other reasons for so doing, they will at least warrant us 
in letting it standas it is (de Wette), no matter whether the miraculous char- 
acter of the affair, so far as Jesus is concerned, is supposed to lie in what He 
there and then performed (‘‘piscis eo ipso momento staterem ex fundo maris 
afferre jussus est,’’ ‘‘the fish was ordered to bring a stater at that very moment 
from the bottom of the sea,’’ Bengel}, or in what he knew, which latter is all 
that the terms of the passage permit us to suppose (Grotius), Finally, the fact 
that the execution of the order given by Jesus, ver. 27, is not expressly recorded, is 
no reason why the reality of the thing itself should be questioned ; for, consid- 
ering the character of the Gospel, as well as the attraction which the thing must 
have had for Peter, the execution in question is to be assumed as a matter of 
course. But even apart from this, the result promised by Jesus would be sure 
to follow in the event of His order being complied with. For this reason Ewald’s 
view also is unsatisfactory, which is to the effect that Jesus merely wanted to 
indicate with what readiness the money for the tax could be procured, the 
phraseology which He employed being supposed to proceed upon well-known, 
although extremely rare, instances of such things being found in fish. 


Nott py AMERICAN EprrTor. 


X. 


The distinction which Dr. Meyer draws between the objective reality of the 
Transfiguration of Jesus and the purely visionary manifestation of Moses and 
Elias is hardly sustained by the text. For as to the words édfjcav airgic, the 
same form is used by Paul in speaking of the appearances of Christ (6¢97 Kyod, 
669n ‘TakdBw, ete., 1 Cor. xv. 5-7), after His resurrection, which were certainly 
as objectively real as the Transfiguration itself. Nor is the possibility of any 
bodily manifestation of Moses an insuperable difficulty. Olshausen solves this 
by assuming the bodily glorification of Moses as well as Elias. ‘In support 
of this idea,’’ he writes, ‘‘Scripture itself gives sufficient intimations (Deut. 
xxxiv. 6 compared with Jude 9; 2 Kings ii. 11 compared with Sirach xlviii. 
9, 13), which men have accustomed themselves to set down as biblical mythol- 
ogy ; but whatright they had to do so is another question.’’! Lange makes the 
better point, that ‘spirits of the blessed are not necessarily destitute of all 
corporeity.”’ 

Dr. Meyer disposes of the very serious objection to the assumed visionary 
character of the appearance of Moses and Elias—to wit, ‘‘that three persons 


1 ** On the Gospels,”’ vol. ii., pp. 229, 230. 


NOTE. 321 


must be supposed to have witnessed the same phenomena, and to have heard 
the same voice”—by saying that this is deprived of its force if ‘‘ it is conceded 
that a supernatural agency was here at work with a view to enable the three 
leading disciples to have a glimpse beforehand of the glory’’ of their Master. 
But if a supernatural agency is here found, may we not suppose that it was equal 
to the task of bringing Moses and Elias before the eyes of the disciples in visi- 
ble form? Where is the occasion for departing from the obvious meaning of 
the text, if the supernatural is fully admitted? In disposing of the natural and 
mythical interpretations of this event, however, Dr. Meyer is exceedingly clear. 

For a full exposition of the history of the Transfiguration, from the super- 
natural point of view, the reader is referred to Trench, ‘‘Studies in the Gospels,”’ 
pp. 184-214. 


B22 THE GOSPEL OF MATTHEW. 


CEP RHe. XeVriT: 


Ver. 1. dpa] Lachm.: jépg, which Fritzsche has adopted, against decisive 
evidence ; although ancient, since both readings are found as early as the time 
of Origen, 7uépa is a gloss instead of dpe, as there appeared to be nothing in 
the context to which the latter might be supposed to refer. — Ver. 4. razevwwdéay] 
The future rarevvdce: is, with Lachm. and Tisch., to be adopted on decisive 
evidence. — Ver. 6, ei¢ tov tp.] for ei¢ Elz. has éxi, while Lachm. and Tisch. 8 
read wepi. Only elc and epi have anything like important testimony in their 
favor. But mepi is taken from Mark ix. 42; Luke xvii. 2.— Ver. 7. On 
weighty evidence we should follow Lachm. in deleting éorw after ydp, and ikeivp 
in the next clause, as words that might naturally have been inserted ; Tisch. 8 
has deleted éoruv only. — Ver. 8. ai7¢] B DL &, min. vss. and Fathers : avrov. 
So Lachm. and Tisch. correctly ; aivd is an emendation to include both.— 
Further on Lachm. and Tisch. 8 have «v/AAov 7 ywAov, folowing B &, Vulg. It. ; 
a transposition to suit yep and rovc. — Ver. 10. The evidence is too weak to 
warrant us in substituting év 7) obpav@ (so Lachm. in brackets) for the first 
év ovpavoic ; still weaker is the evidence. in favor of omitting the words, although 
they are omitted at an early period (as early as the time of Clem. Or. Syr. ?),— 
Ver. 11. This verse does not occur in B L* 8, 1*, 13, 33, Copt. Sahid. Syrier. 
Aeth. (cod. 1), Eus. Or. Hil. Jer. Juv. Deleted by Lachm. and Tisch. ; con- 
demned also by Rinck. Already suspected by Griesb. to have been an inter- 
polation from Luke xix. 10, which in fact it is, considering how much evidence 
there is against it, and considering, on the other hand, that, if it had been 
genuine, there was no obvious motive on exegetical grounds for the omission.— 
Ver. 12. dgelg . . . mopevdeic] Lachm.: adjoe . . . Kat mopevfeic, following 
BDL, min. Vulg. It. (of which, however, D, Vulg. have agiqowv, and D, ropev- 
éuevoc). Exegetical analysis, in order to remove ambiguity as to the connec- 
tion. — Ver. 14. cic] Lachm. and Tisch.: é, following B D L M* 8, min. 
Altered to eic in accordance with ver. 10 ; while zatpdé¢ ov, which Lachm. sub- 
stitutes for zatp. tuov (following B F H J, min. vss. Or.), is to be regarded in 
the same light. — Ver. 15. ei¢ cé] deleted by Lachm. and Tisch. 8, after B &, 1, 
22, 234*, Sahid. Or. Cyr. Bas. This evidence is too weak, especially as the 
omission of EIZSE might easily enough have happened from its following 
HH (duaptjon), while it is further to be borne in mind that, in what goes 
before, it was sin in general, not merely an offence, that was in question. The 
cic oé, Which is here genuine, was inserted from our passage into Luke xvii. 3, 
Elz. —éAeyfov] Elz., Scholz: xai é2., against B C Sand many min. vss. and 
Fathers. The xai was inserted as a connective particle. — Ver. 19. raAuw ayuqjr] 
Elz. (so also Griesh. Scholz, Fritzsche, Rinck, Tisch. 8) has merely radu, and 
Lachm., following min. only (B being erroneously quoted), has merely aujv. 
But the attestation for raAw ayjv (Tisch. 7) is about equal in weight (incl. B) 
to that in favor of the simple 7d”2w (incl. 8), and one of the words might 
easily enough have been omitted from the combination not occurring anywhere 


CHAP. XVII, I. 823 


else. —ovudwvicwow] Seeing that the future cvugwrycovo.y is supported by the 
preponderating evidence of BD KH HIL V A &, min., and seeing, on the other 
hand, that it might very readily have been supplanted by the subjunctive as 
being the mood most in accordance with the usual construction, it is, with 
Tisch., to be adopted as the correct reading. — Ver. 24. rpoonvéxOy] Lachm. 
and Tisch. 7: mpoo7yOn, following BD Or. Correctly ; thisand Luke ix. 41 are 
the only instances in which rpocdyev occurs in the Gospels, rpocdéperv being 
the form most familiar to the copyists. — Ver. 25. eiye] Lachm. and Tisch. 7: 
Eye, following only B, min. Or. ; but itis to be preferred, since to the mechan- 
ical transcribers the present would doubtless seem to be improper. — Ver. 26.] 
kipre before paxp. is to be regarded as interpolated, being omitted by B D, 
min. Vulg. codd. of It. Syre" Or, Chrys. Lucif., and deleted by Lachm. and 
Tisch. — Ver. 27. éxe/vov] omitted by Lachm., only after B, min., as is also 
éxeivoc, ver. 28, only after B.— Ver. 28. yor not found in the more weighty 
witnesses ; deleted by Lachm. and Tisch. An interpolation. — ei 7 Elz.: 6, 7, 
against decisive evidence. Erroneous emendation. —Ver. 29. aizov Elz. 
Fritzsche, Schulz, Scholz, Tisch. 7, insert ei¢ rode rédac aizov, which, however, 
is omitted by B C* D GLA 8, min. Copt. Sahid. Aeth. Syre It. (Brix. 
excepted) Vulg. Or. Lucif. Gloss on the simple weowv. In regard to eic, 
comp. John xi. 32, al. —zav7a] Deleted by Matth., Scholz, Tisch., on prepon- 
derating evidence ; bracketed by Lachm. It isa mechanical interpolation from 
ver. 26.— Ver. 31. For the first yevoueva Fritzsche and Tisch. substitute 
yevoueva, following only D L 8**, min. Vulg. It. Chrys. Lucif., but correctly. 
The transcribers failed to notice the difference of meaning. — For aivav or 
abivov we should, with Lachm. and Tisch., read éavtév, upon decisive evidence; 
the reflexive reference of the pronoun was overlooked, as was often the case.— 
Ver, 34, aiz7o] not found in BD &**, min. vss. Lachm. ; but it may easily 
enough have been left out in conformity with ver. 30. — Ver. 35. duor] Elz. 
Fritzsche, Schulz, Scholz insert ra tapaztoéparta aitov, which is not found in B 
DL &, min. and several vss. and Fathers. Gloss from vi. 14, 15; Mark xi. 25, 
26. — But éxovpavioc, for which Fritzsche, Lachm. Tisch. 8 substitute oipdvio¢ 
(B C** DK L II, min. Or. Damasc.), is to be retained, all the more that the 
expression 6 zat7p 6 Exovp. occurs nowhere else, though we frequently find o z, 
6 obpavioc. 


Ver. 1. ’Ev éxeivy tH dpa] the account of Matthew, which is throughout 
more original in essential matters than Mark ix. 33 ff. and Luke ix. 46 ff., 
bears this impress no less in this definite note of time : in that hour, namely, 
when Jesus was holding the above conversation with Peter. — ri¢ apa] quis 
igitur. The question, according to Matthew (in Mark otherwise), is sug- 
gested by the consideration of the cireumstances: Who, as things stand, is, etc. ; 
for one of them had just been peculiarly honored, and that for the second 
time, by the part he was called upon to take in a special miracle.*? — peifov| 
greater than the other disciples in rank and power. — éoriv] they speak as 
though the approaching Messianic kingdom were already present.® 


1 See Klotz, ad Devar. p. 176. ples displayed at the time ordinary human 
2 Huthymius Zigabenus says well: av@pw- feelings.” 
mivov Te TOTE TETOVOacL ot wabnrat, *‘ the disci- 3 Comp. xx. 21. 


324 THE GOSPEL OF MATTHEW. 

Ver. 2. Iaidiov] According to Nicephorus, ii. 35, the child in question is 
alleged to have been St. Ignatius.’ 

Ver. 3.2 To turn round (crpadjre, representing the yerdvora under the idea 
of turning round upon a road), and to acquire a moral disposition similar to 
the nature of little children—such is the condition, without complying with 
which you will assuredly not (od pf) enter, far less be able to obtain a high 
position in, the Messianic kingdom about to be established. The same truth 
is presented under a kindred figure and in a wider sense in John iii. 3, 5 ff. ; 
the divine agént in this moral change, in which child-like qualities assume 
the character of manly virtwes, is the Holy Spirit.* 

Ver. 4. Inference from the general principle of ver. 3 to the special child- 
like quality in which the disciples were deficient, as well as to the special 
subject of their question. If your entering the future Messianic kingdom at 
all is determined by your returning again to a child-like frame of mind, then 
above all must you acquire, through humble self-abasement, the unassuming 
character of this child, in order to be greater than others in the Messiah’s 
kingdom. — éaric] guicunque.* In what follows rarewdce: is emphatic, and 
accordingly stands near the beginning of the sentence. Had the subjunctive 
been critically certain, we should not have had to borrow éav from the second 
part of the statement (Fritzsche), but rather to observe the distinction in the 
manner of presenting the idea, according to which the insertion of dv marks 
the presupposition as conditioned. The fwtwre assumes the action as actually 
occurring in the future ; while the subjunctive after the relative without av 
keeps the future realization still within the domain of thought, without, 
however, conceiving of the realization as conditioned (a).° — Moreover, the 
words of vv. 3, 4, inasmuch as they are essentially connected with the ques- 
tion of the disciples, are certainly original, not an anticipation of xix. 13 ff. 
(Holtzmann), and dispose us to prefer the account of Matthew to that of 
Mark or Luke. 

Ver. 5.° The question of the disciples has been answered. But His eye 
having lighted upon this child who happened to be present, Jesus now 
seizes the opportunity of inculcating upon them the duty of taking an affec- 
tionate interest in such little ones,—an exhortation, of which the jealous 
and ambitious spirit evinced by their question in ver. 1 must have shown 


1 Chrysostom correctly observes that it is 
a little child (apddpa madiov) ; TO yap ToLvovTov 


amep €xovor Ta maidia €& adedcias, “if any 
one abstains from deliberately chosen 
passions, he becomes like the little children, 
having acquired by discipline what they 
have through guilelessness,’? Euthymius 
Zigabenus. 

3 Comp. Luke xi. 13, ix. 55. 

4“ De individuo, de quo quaerebant, non 
respondet,” ‘as to the individual concern- 
ing whom they were inquiring, he does 


ma.dlov Kat amovolas kat Sofopmavias Kk. BaoKkavias 
kK. dtAovetKelas K, TAVTWY TOV TOLOVTWY aTHAAaK- 
Tai TaG@V, Kal TOAAGS EXOV TAS apETas, apedeLav, 
ampaymoovrvynv, em ovdevi 
(‘a very little child’’) ; 
“for a child of this sort is free from foolish- 
ness, love of fame, envy, contentiousness, 
and all such passions, and possessing many 


Tame.voppoovyyy, 
TOUTWY emalpeTat, 


excellences, simplicity, humility, quietness, 
is elated by no one of these.’? Comp. Mark 
ix. 86; Luke ix. 47. 

2 El tus amexeTat THY MpoatpeTiK@Y Tabar, 
yiveTat ws Ta Tadia, KTwWEevos Su’ acKknTEws, 


not make any reply,’’ Bengel. 

5 For this usage among Attic prose wri- 
ters, see Kiihner, ad Xen. Mem. i. 6. 13. 

6 Comp. Mark ix. 37; Luke ix. 47. 


CHAPS XV DIG: D290 
they stood but too much in need. — raidiov rovobrov] such a little child, ie., 
according to the context, not a literal child (Bengel, Paulus, Neander, de 
Wette, Arnoldi, Bleek, Hilgenfeld), which would give a turn to the dis- 
course utterly foreign to the connection, but a man of such a disposition as this 
little child represents—one who with child-like simplicity is humble and un- 
assuming. So Chrysostom,’ Erasmus, Beza, Calvin, Grotius, Wetstein, 
Kuinoel, Olshausen, Kern, Baumgarten-Crusius, Ewald, Keim. Jesus well 
knew how much the unassuming, child-like disposition, free from everything 
like self-assertion, was just that which others, animated by an opposite spirit, 
were in the habit of overlooking, slighting, and thrusting aside. —é] a 
single one. So very precious are they !— dé&yrac] denotes a loving reception 
with a view to further care for the soul ; the opposite to this is cxavdadiferv, 
ver. 6. —ézi 6 dvéuari pov] on the ground of my name (xxiv. 5)—i.e., on account 
of my name, which, however, is not, with de Wette, to be taken subjective- 
ly, and referred to the faith of the one who receives (whosoever confessing 
my name, on account of his faith in me, etc.), but is to be understood as 
referring to the radiov towvrov that is to be received,* because my name (Jesus 
the Messiah) contains the sum of his belief and confession. — iué] comp. x. 40, 
xxv. 40; John xiii. 20. 

Ver. 6.4 ckavdaiion] Opposite of déFyra, meaning : will have been to him 
the occasion of his fall, especially of his apostasy from the faith (v. 29, xi. 
6). —réav puKpdv tobrov] not to be understood, any more than ravdiov Towiro, 
ver. 5, of literal children (Holtzmann), and consequently not to be used as 
proof of the faith of little children (Baur, Delitzsch), but as meaning : one 
of those little ones,—a way of designating modest, simple-minded, unassum- 
ing believers, that had just been suggested by seeing in the child then pres- 
ent a model of such simplicity. This is not quite the same as rép pKpov 
tovrwv, x. 42 (xxv. 40), where the expression is not borrowed from the illus- 
tration of a child. —ovydéper ait, wa, x.t.2.] For the construction, comp. 
note on v. 29. ‘‘ But whoever will have offended one of those little ones,” 
— it is of service to him, with a view to, i.e., in hune jfinem ut. That, which 
such a person may have come to deserve, is thus expressed in the form of a 
divine purpose, which his evil deed must help him to bring about ; comp. 
John xi. 50. <A comparative reference of cvpdéper,° is a pure importation. — 
pbdoc bvixéc] The larger mills (in contradistinction to the yerpouiAa, xxiv. 
41) were driven by an ass.° — The xararovrioude? was not a Jewish method of 
putting to death, neither was it a practice in Galilee,* but belonged to the 


1 qradiov yap évTav0a tovs avOpwmovs Tovs 
oUTMs adedrets bygt kal TameLVos Kal ameppLme- 
vous mapa Tots moAAots, ‘‘for He says that 
these men are like a little child who are 
thus simple, and lowly, and thrust aside by 
the masses.” 

2 Mark ix. 41; Matt. x. 42. 

3““Non ob causas naturales aut politi- 
eas,” “not for reasons of nature or expedi- 
ency,”’ Bengel. 

4 Comp. Mark ix. 42; Luke xvii. 2. 


5 Jerome: ‘‘ quam aeternis servari cruci- 
atibus,” ‘‘thanto be preserved for eternal 
tortures; others: than again to commit 
such a sin. 

6 Buxtorf, Lex. Talm. p. Comp. 
also Anth. Pal. ix. 301; Ovid, A. A. iii. 290. 

7 Wesseling, ad Diod. Sic. xvi. 35; Her- 
mann. Privatalterth. § 72, 26; Casaubon, ad 
Suet. Oct. 67. 

® Joseph. Antt. xiv. 15. 10. 


9959 
wen. 


3826 THE GOSPEL OF MATTHEW. 


Greeks, Romans, Syrians, and Phoenicians. Consequently it here expresses 
in a manner all the more vivid and awe-inspiring that punishment of death 
to which the man in question has become liable, and which is intended to 
represent the loss of eternal life ; comp. vy. 7-9. 

Ver. 7. Ovai] Ypyvei O¢ piAdvdpwrog Tov Kéouov ¢ éAAovTa BAaBHvat ard TOV 
oxavdaawv, ‘‘as loving man, He laments that the world is about to be injured 
by reason of stumblingblocks,” Theophylact. —azé] indicating the causal 
origin of the woe for humanity (76 xéou). The world is not conceived of 
as giving the offence (in answer to Jansen, Arnoldi, Bleek), but as suffering 
from it. With regard to ard, see Buttmann, Newt. Gramm. p. 277 [E. T. 
332]. — avayxn yap] assigns the reason for the azé rév cxavda2. immediately 
before : on account of offences, I say, for they cannot but come. This neces- 
sity (necessitas consequentiae) hasits foundation in the morally abnormal con- 
dition of mankind, yet (comp. 1 Cor. xi. 19) is to be traced back to the di- 
vine purpose (not merely permission), which, however, does away neither 
with the moral freedom of him who, by word or deed, gives offence (Rom. 
xiv. 13), nor with his liability to punishment. Hence : rAqyv (yet) ovai ro 
Gvoporw, K.T.A.—Tad oxdvdada] temptations, as a general conception. — rd 
oxavd.| the temptation as conceived of in each individual case. 

Ver. 8 f." A passing direction, suggested by ver. 7, for avoiding certain 
specified offences, and substantially the same as in v. 29. ‘A repetition 
depending here, no doubt, on Mark (Weiss), yet not to be regarded as out 
of place, because the proverbial saying refers to one’s own temptations as 
coming through the senses, while here the point in question is the tempta- 
tion of others (de Wette, Kuinoel, Strauss, Holtzmann, Hilgenfeld), but on 
the contrary as quite appropriate, inasmuch as the oxavdaia occasioned from 
without operate through the senses, and thereby seduce into evil. — caddy 
oo. éotiv . . . 7) amixture, by attraction, of two constructions : Jt is good 
to enter into the life (of the Messiah’s kingdom at the second coming) maimed 
(and better) than, etc.? But in the present passage the material representa- 
tion of mortification as the.condition of eternal life is somewhat more circum- 
stantial and graphic. — ywAdv] refers to the feet, one of which, indeed, is 
supposed to be awanting,* while, according to the context, «v2.2d6v here (more 
general in xy. 30) refers to mutilation of the arm, from which the hand is 
supposed to be cut off. Hence : limping (yoAdv) or maimed (xvarév). But 
the circumstance of yoddv being put jirst is due to the fact that the cutting 
off of the foot (airév, see critical notes) had been specified, although at the 
same time an identical proceeding in regard to the hand is, of course, to be 
understood. — povdddary.*] According to the grammarians, we should 
have had érepéo9adu. in contradistinction to povd@darpu., which denotes the 
condition of one born with one eye.° 


1 Comp. Mark ix. 48 ff. vy. 29, 30. 

2 See Fritzsche’s note on this passage, and 3 Comp. Hom. JZ. ii. 217: xwdrds & erepov 
Dissert. Il. ad 2 Cor. p. 85; Winer, p. 226 oda. 
[E. T. 302] ; Buttmann, p. 309 [E. T. 360]. 4 Herod. iii. 116, iv. 27; Strabo, II. p. 70. 
For examples from classical writers, see 5 See Lobeck, ad Phryn. p. 186 f.; Becker, 


Kypke, Qdss. I. p. 89: Bos, Hilips., ed. Anecd. I. p. 280. 
Schaefer, p. 769 ff. See besides, the note on 


CEEAPS KVLET A. LO, ka and 


Ver. 10. Jesus now proceeds with his cautions, which had been inter- 
rupted by the parenthetical exhortation in vv. 7-9. The belief that every 
individual has a guardian angel "—which is a post-Babylonian development 
of the Old Testament view, that God exercised His care over His people 
through angelic instrumentality—is here confirmed by Jesus (Acts xii. 15), 
—a point which is to be simply admitted, but not to be explained symboli- 
cally, neither by an ‘‘ as it were” (Bleek), as though it were intended merely 
to represent the great value of the little ones in the sight of God (de Wette), 
nor as referring to human guardians, who are supposed to occupy a position 
of pre-eminent bliss in heaven (Paulus). — év obp. did mavtic BAérover, K.T.A.] 
inasmuch as they are ever in immediate proximity to God’s glory in heaven, 
and therefore belong .to the highest order of angels. This is not merely a 
way of expressing the great importance of the puxpoi, but a proof which, from 
Aéyo buiv and rod ratpé¢ wov, receives all the weight of an emphatic testi- 
mony ; while the mode of representation? is borrowed from the court 
arrangements of Oriental kings, whose most confidential servants are called 
Tea 22 SF 

Ver. 11 f. Omitting ver. 11, which is not genuine (see critical notes), we 
come to the parable vv. 12-14, which is intended to show that it would be 
in direct opposition to God’s desire for human salvation to lead astray one 
of those pxpoi, and to cause him to be lost, like a strayed sheep. Luke xv. 
4 ff. records the same beautiful parable, though in a different connection, 
and with much tenderer, truer, and more original features. But the time- 
hallowed parable of the shepherd came so naturally to Jesus, that there is no 
reason why He should not have employed it more than once, in a shorter or 
more detailed form, according as it happened to be appropriate to the occa- 
sion. —7i tyiv doxei] ‘‘ suavis communicatio,” Bengel. — éav yévyrat, x.7.2.] if 
a hundred sheep have fallen to a man’s lot, if he has come into the posses- 
sion of them.* The contrast to év requires that we should conceive of éxardév 
as a large number (not as a small flock, Luke xii. 32).°— It is preferable to 
connect éxi rd dpy With ageic (Vulgate, Luther), because the connecting of it 
with zopevdeic (Stephanus, Beza, Casaubon, Er. Schmid, Bengel) would im- 
part an unmeaning emphasis to éx? ra ép7. The man in pasturing his sheep 
upon the hills, observes that one of them is amissing, therefore meanwhile 
leaves the flock alone upon the hills (for the one that has strayed demands 
immediate attention), and, going away, searches for the one sheep that is 
lost. The reading of Lachmann represents the right connectton. 
dpn| éxi is not merely wpon (as answering the question : where ?), but 
expresses the idea of being scattered over the surface of anything, which cor- 





Peet eck 
ETL TA 


responds exactly with what is seen in the case of a flock when it is grazing, 
and which is likewise in keeping with dgeic, which conveys the idea of 
being Jet out, let loose.° — tay yévnra ebpeiv aird] if it should happen that he 


1 See Tob. v.; comp. in general, Schmidt 15; Luke i. 19. 


in Ilgen’s Denkschr. I. p. 24 ff. 4 Kiihner, II. 1, p. 364. 
2Comp. 0°35 oybn of the Rabbinical 5 Comp. Lightfoot. 
writers, Schoettgen’s note on this passage. 6 Comp. notes on xiii. 2, xiv. 19, xv. 35. 


32 Kings xxy. 19; 1 Kings x. 8; Tob. xii. 


328 THE GOSPEL OF MATTHEW. 

Jinds it. This expression is unfavorable to the notion of irresistible grace. 
— yaipet, x.7.4.] This picture, so psychologically truc, of the first impression 
is not applied to God in ver. 14 (otherwise iu Luke xv. 7)), although, from 
the popular anthropopathic point of view, it might have been so. Luke’s 
version of the parable is characterized by greater freshness. 

Ver. 14. Accordingly, as it is not the will of that man that one of his 
sheep should be lost, so it is not the will of God that one of those pcxpoi 
should be lost (should fall into eternal perdition). The point of the compar- 
ison therefore lies in the unwillingness to let perish ; in the parable this is 
represented by the case of a strayed sheep, for the purpose of teaching the 
disciples that if a ~cxpé¢ happens to err fromthe faith and the Christian life, 
they should not abandon him, but try to induce him to amend.—What is 
said in regard to the pxpoi is therefore put in the form of a climax : (1) Do 
‘not despise them, inasmuch as you would cause them to go astray, and be 
the occasion of their ruin (vv. 6-10). (2) On the contrary, if one does go 
wrong, rescue him, just as the shepherd rescues his wandering sheep, in 
order that it may not be lost (vv. 12-14). — éuzpoo¥er] coram (xi. 26 ; Luke 
xv. 10). There is not before God (before the face of God) any determination 
having. as its object that, etc. ; consequently, no predestination to condemna- 
tion in the divine will. On the idea involved in 8éAyua, comp. note on i. 
19.2 év] See critical notes. The idea of the sheep still lingers in the 
mind. 

Ver. 15. The connection with what precedes is as follows : ‘‘ Despise not 
one of the pixpoi (vv. 10-14) ; if, however, one offends against thee, then 
proceed thus.” The subject changes from that of doing injury to the pcxpoi, 
against which Jesus has been warning (vv. 10-14), to that of suffering in- 
jury, in yiew of which he prescribes the proper method of brotherly visita- 
tion. However, in developing this contrast, fhe point of view becomes: so 
generalized that, instead of the puxpo/, who were contemplated in the previous 
warning, we now have the Christian brother generally, 6 adeA¢é6c¢ cov—there- 
fore, the genus to which the puxpdc¢ as species belongs. — duapthon eic cé| The 
emphasis is not on ei¢ of, but on dyuaprgoy : but if thy brother shall have 
sinned against thee, which he is supposed todo not merely ‘‘ seandalo dato” 
(Bengel), but by sinful treatment in general, by any unbrotherly wrong what- 
Comp. ver. 21.2 How can it be supposed that the procedure here 
inculeated was intended to apply to every sin without any limitation what- 


soever. 


ever? Would we not have in that case a supervision omnium contra omnes ? 
The reference can only be to private charges, to offences in which the one 
sins against the other (cic of), and which, as such, ought to be dealt with 
within the Christian church. Comp. 1 Cor. vi. 1 ff. —iraye] do not wait, 


1Comp. Hesiod, Zheog. 689; in classical 
Greek, found mostly with, though also with- 
out, a dative. Xen. Mem.i.9.13; Cyr. vi. 3. 
11; Plato, Rep. p. 397 B ; Ktihner, IT. 2, p. 582. 


p. 339 ff., Julius Miiller, Dogmat. Abh. p. 
513 ff., reject the reading eis oé€, ver. 15, 
though on internal grounds that are not 
conclusive, and which might be met by 


2 For the ¢elic sense of tva, comp. Vii. 12; 
Mark vi. 25, x. 35, a/., and the e@érevw 6gpa of 
Homer; Nigelsbach’s note on J/iad, i. 133. 

3 Ch. W. Miiller in the Stud. wu. Krit. 1857, 


stronger counter-arguments against the 
use of auaptyjon without modification of 
any sort. 


CHAP) OcVUrT, » Gs 7, 329 


then, till he himself come to thee. — peragzd cod x. aitod pdvov] so that except 
him no one else is to be present along with thee, so that the interview be 
strictly confined to the two of you. Wemust not therefore supply a uévov 
after cov as well. But the rebuking agency (Eph. v. 11) is regarded as in- 
tervening between the two parties. The person who reproves mediates 
between the two parties, of which he himself forms one. — éév cov axotoy] if 
he will have listened to thy admonition, will have complied with it. But 
Fritzsche and Olshausen connect the preceding yévev with this clause : 
“¢ 8% tibi soli aures praebuerit,” ‘‘if he should listen to thee alone.”. This 
would imply an arrangement that is both harsh and foreign to New Testa- 
ment usage. — éxépdyoac] usually explained : as thy friend.’ But whata 
truism would such a result imply! Therefore it should much rather be ex- 
plained thus : thou hast gained him for the eternal blessedness of my kingdom, 
to which, from not being brought to a state of repentance, he would other- 
wise have been lost (ver. 17). But the subject who gains is the party that 
has been aggrieved by the offence of the brother, because the successful result 
is understood to be brought about by his affectionate endeavors after an ad- 
justment.? 

Ver. 16. Second gradus admonitionis. The one or the two who accompany 
him are likewise intended to take part in the é2éyyecv (see aitév, ver. 17).— 
wa éxi oréuatoc, K.t.2.] i order that, in the mouth of two or three witnesses, 
every word may be duly attested ; i.e., in order that every declaration which 
he makes in answer to your united éAéyyew may be heard by two or three 
persons (according as one or two may happen to be present besides thyself), 
and, on the strength of their testimony (é7? oréyuaroc, *5 5D), may be duly 
authenticated, so that in the event of his submitting to the éAé,yew the pos- 
sibility of evading or denying anything afterwards will be precluded ; or 
else, should he prove so refractory that the matter must be brought before 
the church, then, in the interests of this further disciplinary process, it will 
be of consequence to have the declaration, made by him in the previous 
attempt to deal with him, in an authentic and unquestionable shape.—In 
order to convey His idea, Jesus has used, though somewhat freely (otherwise 
in 2 Cor. xiii. 1), the words of the law, Deut. xix. 15, and made them His 
own. Comp. 1 Tim. v. 19. 





Ver. 17. TH éxxAycie) is not to be understood of the Jewish synagogue (Beza, 
Calvin, Fritzsche), which is never called by this name, and any reference to 
which would be contrary to the meaning of Jesus ; but it is to be taken as 
referring to the community of believers on Jesus (comp. note on xvi. 18), 
which is, as yet, regarded as one body with the apostles included (ver. 18). 
There is here no allusion to individual congregations in different localities, 
since these could come into existence only at a later period ; neither, for 
this reason, can there be any allusion to presbyters and bishops (Chrysostom), 
or to those whom they may have invested, as their representatives, with 


1 rpa@tov yap é¢nutov TovTOY, dia TOU oKavSaAov broken away from thy brotherly union,” 
pynyvumevov amd THs adeAdixis gov cuvadelas, Euthymius Zigabenus. 
“for at first you were atlossastothisone | ?Comp.1Cor.ix. 19; 1 Pet. iii. 1. 
who, through the stumbling-block, had 


330 THE GOSPEL OF MATTHEW. 


spiritual jurisdiction (Catholic writers, comp. besides, Déllinger). There 
is, further, nothing to warrant the assumption of an historical prolepsis (de 
Wette, Julius Miller), for the truth is, the wp of believers was actually 
existing ; while, in the terms of this passage, there is no direct reference to 
individual congregations. But as Jesus had already spoken elsewhere of 
His np (xvi. 18), it was impossible for the disciples to misunderstand the 
allusion. The warrant for regarding the judgment of the church as final in 
regard to the éAeygvc lies in the moral power which belongs to the unity of 
the Holy Spirit, and, consequently, to true understanding, faith, earnest 
effort, prayer, etc., the existence of all which in the church is presupposed. 
It is not inconsistent with this passage to suppose that, under the more de- 
veloped circumstances of a later period, when local congregations sprung up 
as offshoots from the 7p, there may have been some representative body, 
composed of individuals chosen for the purpose of maintaining discipline, 
but the choice would necessarily be founded on such conditions and qualifi- 
cations as were in keeping, so far as it was possible for man to judge, with 
the original principle of entrusting such matters only to those who were 
actual believers-and had been truly regenerated. — éav 62 kai tr. éxxA. mapak. | 
but if he refuses to listen even to the church ; if he will not have submitted to 
its advice, exhortation, injunction. —éortw cot dorep, K.t.2.] let him be for thee 
(ethical dative) ; let him be in thy estimation as, etc.’ What is here indi- 
cated is the breaking off of all further Christian, brotherly fellowship with 
one who is hopelessly obdurate, ‘‘as not being a sheep, nor caring to be 
sought, but willing to go right to perdition,” Luther. In this passage Christ 
says nothing, as yet, about formal excommunication on the part of the churci 
(1 Cor. v.) ; but the latter was such a fair and necessary deduction from 
what he did say, as the apostolic church, in the course of its development, 
considered itself warranted in making.*? In answer to the latter, Calovius, 
in common with the majority of the older expositors, asserts that the institution 
of excommunication is, in the present passage, already expressly declared. — 
6 édvixde] generic. 

Ver. 18 f. By way of giving greater confidence in the exercise of this 
last stage of discipline at which the matter is finally disposed of by the 
church, let me assure you of two things : (1) whatever you (in the church) 
declare to be unlawful on the one hand, or permissible on the other (see note 
on xvi. 19) will be held to be so in the sight of God ; your judgment in re- 
gard to complaints brought before the church is accordingly ratified by di- 
vine warrant. (2) If two of you agree as to anything that is to be asked in 
prayer, it will be given you by God ; when, therefore, your hearts are thus 
united in prayer, you are assured of the divine help and illumination, in 
order that, in every case, you may arrive at and, in the church, give effect 
to decisions in accordance with the mind of God.—Those addressed in the 
second person (dfoyre, k.7.2.) are the apostles,* but not the disciples in the 


1 Noutdy aviata 6 ToLovTOS voce, “Such a one ““T would not deny that for this purpose, a 
is already incurably diseased,’ Chrysostom. strong argument can be drawn from this 
2“ Ad eam ex hoc etiam loco non absurde place,’’ Grotius. 
argumentum duaci posse non negayerim,” 3 Hofmann, Schriftbew. Il. 2, p. 266 f. 


OMAP, SV IE, 5.20; 331 
more comprehensive sense of the word,’ nor the Church,? nor its leaders,* nor the 
parties who have been injured.* In order to'a clear understanding of the 
whole discourse from ver. 8 onwards, it should be observed generally, that 
wherever the address is in the second person plural (therefore in vv. 3, 10, 
12, 14, 18, 19), itis the Twelve who came to Jesus, ver. 1, that are intended; 
but that where Jesus uses the second person singular (as in vv. 8, 9, 15-17), 
He addresses every believer individually (including also the puxpot). But as 
far as the éxxAyo/a is concerned, it is to be understood as meaning the con- 
gregation of believers, including the apostles. It is the possessor and guardian 
of the apostolic moral legislation, and consequently it is to it that the of- 
fender is in duty bound to yield obedience. Finally, since the power of bind- 
ing and loosing, which in xvi. 19 was adjudged to Peter, is here ascribed to 
the apostles generally, the power conferred upon the former is set in its 
proper light, and shown to be of necessity a power of a collegiate nature, so 
that Peter is not to be regarded as exclusively endowed with it either in 
whole or in part, but is simply to be looked upon as primus inter pares.— 
Tadw cujv 2. bu.] Once more a solemn assurance ! and that to the effect 
that, etc. Comp. xix. 24. For édv with the indicative (cvpdwrvicovorv, see 
critical notes).° The construction is a case of attraction ; trav should have 
been the subject of the principal clause of the sentence, but was attracted 
to the subordinate clause and joined to rpdyyaroc, so that without the 
attraction the passage would run thus : édv dito ty. ovpewrfoovo eri tT. yi¢ 
wept mpdyuatoc, Trav 6 éav aithowvtat, yewhoerat avroic.® For the contrast im- 
plied in éx? +. y#¢ comp. ix. 6. 

Ver. 20. Confirmation of this promise, and that not on account of any 
special preference for them in their official capacity, but generally (hence 
the absence of judy in connection with the dio 7 tpeic) owing to the fact of 
His gracious presence in the midst of His people when met together : for 
where two or three are gathered together with reference to my name, there am I 
(my presence being represented by the Holy Spirit, comp. Rom. vii. 9f.; 2 
Cor. xiii. 5; 1 Cor. v.4; Gal. ii. 20; Eph. iii. 16 f.; also in general, 
XXVill. 20) in the midst of them ; so that you need therefore have no doubt as 
to the yevjoerar just promised to you, which I, as associated with my Father 
(ver. 19), will bring about. The statement is put in the form of an aviom ; 
hence, although referring to the future, its terms are present. The higher, 
spiritual object of the mecting together of the two or three lies not in 
cvvnyévot, Which expresses nothing more than the simple fact of being met 
(in answer to Grotius, de Wette), but in ei¢ rd éudv dvoua, which indicates 
that the name of Jesus Christ (7.e., the confession, the honoring of it, etc.) is 
that which in the ovryypévoy elva, is contemplated as its specific motive.” 


1 Weiss, Bibl. Theol. p. 103. 

2 Bleek, Schenkel, Keim, Ahrens. 

3 Euthymius Zigabenus, de Wette. 

4 Origen, Augustine, Theophylact,Grotius. 

5 See note on Luke xix. 40, and Butt- 
mann, Neut. Gramm. p. 192 [E. T. 222]; 
Bremi, ad Lys. Ale. 13. 

®§ Comp. Kiihner, II 2, p. 925. 


T wh &’ érépav airiav, Euthymius Ziga- 
benus. ‘Simile dicunt Rabbini de duobus 
aut tribus considentibus in judicio, quod 
Dw sit in medio eorum,” ‘‘ the Rabbins 
say a like thing concerning two or three 
sitting in judgment, that Shebania is in the 
midst of them,” Lightfcot. 


332 THE GOSPEL OF MATTHEW. 

Ver. 21. At this point Peter steps forward from amongst the disciples 
(ver. 1), and going up to Jesus,’ proposes that forgiveness should be:shown 
more than twice the number of times which the Rabbis had declared to be 
requisite. ? 

Ver. 22. Ov Aéyw cor] are to be taken together (in answer to Fritzsche), and 
to be rendered thus : I do not say to thee, I do not give thee the prescription ; 
comp. John xvi. 26. — éBdounxovrdxic éxra] not : till seventy times seven, i.e., till 
the four hundred and ninetieth time (Jerome, Theophylact, Erasmus, Luther, 
Grotius, de Wette, Bleek) ; but, seeing that we have éxrd, and not érxrdx¢ 
again, the rendering should simply be : till seventy-seven times. No doubt, 
according to the classical usage of adverbial numerals, this would have been 
expressed by érré cat EBdounkovrance OY EBdopqxovta éextaxcc ; but the expression 
in the text is according to the LXX. Gen. iv. 24.* So, and that correctly, 
Origen, Augustine, Bengel, Ewald, Hilgenfeld, Keim.* 

Ver. 23. Aca rovr0] must refer to the reply to Peter’s question, for a new 
scene was introduced at ver. 21. Therefore to be explained thus : ‘‘ because 
I have enjoined such unlimited forgiveness” (not merely a conciliatory dis- 
position generally, in answer to de Wette and Bleek). The duty of unlim- 
ited forgiveness proves any shortcoming in regard to this matter to be but the 
more reprehensible, and to point this out is the object of the parable which 
follows. — d0166n 7 Bac. r. oip.| See note on xiii, 24.—The dotAo are the king’s 
ministers who are indebted to him through having received money on loan 
(davecov, ver. 27), or, relatively, as treasurers, land stewards, or the like. 
But it is not without reason that avdpdrw is joined to BaciAei, seeing that 
the kingdom of heaven is likened to a human king. Comp. the avyp Bacircic 
of Homer. — ovvaipew Aédyor] to hold a reckoning, to settle accounts, occurs again 
in xxv. 19, but nowhere else.° 

Ver. 24 ff. According to Boeckh, Staatshaush. d. Athener, I. p. 15 ff., an 
(Attic) talent, or sixty minae, amounted to 1375 thalers [about £206 Ster- 
ling]. Ten thousand talents, amounting to something considerably over 
thirteen millions of thalers, are intended to express a sum so large as to be 
well-nigh incalculable. So great was the debt of one (cic). — éxéAevoev avriv 
. . . évec] according to the Mosaic law ; Lev. xxv. 39, 47; 2 Kings iv. 1; 


1 youigwv dav7tat weyadoWvxoratos, ‘* deem- 
ing that he would appear most magnani- 
mous,”’ Euthymius Zigabenus. 

2 Babyl. Joma, f. 86. 2, contains the fol- 
lowing words: ‘“‘Homini in alterum pec- 
ecanti semel remittunt, secundo remittunt, 
tertio remittunt, quarto non remittunt,” 
“To a man sinning against another they 
remit once, they remit twice, they remit a 
third time, they do not remit a fourth 
time.” 


° Where, indeed, NYAW) D'pAW cannot 


possibly mean anything else than seventy- 
seven, as is clear from the }, not seventy 


times seven; comp. Judg. viii. 14. This in 
answer to Kamphausen in the Stud. wu. Avit. 


1861, p. 121 f. The (substantive) feminine 
form 7 PIw cannot be considered strange 
(seventy and a@ seven). See Ewald, Lehrd. d. 
Hebr. Spr. § 267 ¢., and his Jahrb. XI. p. 198. 

4 Comp. ‘‘ the Gospel of the Hebrews” in 
Hilgenfeld’s WV. 7. extracan. TV. p. 24. — For 
the sense, comp. Theophylact : 
apiou.d mepikdcion THY TvyXwpyaLV, adAAG TO 


ovx iva 


amTetpov evtavba onmaiver: ws av et edeyev* 
OcdKis ay mTaicas meTavoH TUyXMpEL aT, 
““not that He may shut in forgiveness by 
number, but he points out there the bound- 
lessness of it, as if he should say, however 


often one stumbling repents, forgive 
him.”’ 
5 Classical writers would say: écado- 


yiSeoOar mpds Tiva, Dem, 1236. 17. 


CHAP. XVIII., 28-31. 333 


Ex. xxii. 2.1. The word airév is emphatic : that he should be sold, ete. On 
the present indicative éyer (see critical notes), which is derived from the idea 
of the narrative being direct, comp. Kiithner, II. 2, p. 1058. — kai arododjvac] 
and that payment be made. This was the king’s command : it must be paid, 
viz., the sum due. The fact of the proceeds of the sale not proving suffi- 
cient for this purpose did not in any way affect the order ; hence azodov. 
is not to be referred merely to the proceeds (Fritzsche). The king wants his 
money, and therefore does the best he can in the circumstances to get it. 
—dvra oot axoddcw] in his distress and anguish he promises far more than 
he can hope to perform. And the king in his compassion goes far beyond 
what was asked (a¢jxev avt@). — For ddvevov, money lent, comp. Deut. xxiv. 
11; found frequently in classical writers since the time of Demosth. 911. 3. 

Ver. 28. A hundred denarii, about forty Rhenish Gulden, or 23 Thalers 
[about £3, 9s. sterling] (a denarius being not quite equal to a drachma), 
what a paltry debt compared with those talents of which there were a hundred 
times a hundred ! — éxviye| Creditors (as the Roman law allowed them to do) 
often dragged their debtors before the judge, holding them by the throat. 
Clericus and Wetstein on this passage. — arédo¢ ei te MpetAerc] ei te is not to 
be taken, as is often done, as though it were equivalent to 6,7. For where 
eit, like si quid, is used in the sense of quicquid,* ei always has a conditional 
force, which would be out of place in the present instance ; but, with 
Fritzsche and Olshausen, to trace the expression to Greek urbanity, would 
be quite incongruous here. Neither, however, are we to affirm, with Paulus 
and Baumgarten-Crusius, that the conditional expression is rather more 
severe in its tone, from representing the man as not being even certain in re- 
gard to the debt ; for the certainty of the debt is implied in the terms of 
the passage, and, moreover, in the xparjoac abr. éxviye was necessarily to be 
presupposed on the part of the dovsoc. No, the ci is simply the expression 
of a pitiless logic : Pay, if thou owest anything (azédo¢ being emphatic). 
From the latter the former follows as matter of necessity. If thou owest 
anything (and such is the case), then thou must also pay,—and therefore I 
arrest thee ! 

Ver. 29. Ieodv] after that he had fallen down,—that is, as one who xpocex- 
vet, Which follows, as a matter of course, from ver. 26, without our requir- 
ing to insert such words as ei¢ rove tédac abrov (see critical notes).* 

Ver. 31 f. "HAurAdycav| They were grieved at the hard-heartedness and 
cruelty which they saw displayed in what was going on (rd yivéueva, see 
critical notes). —dvecdd.] not simply narrarunt (Vulgate), but more precise- 
ly : declararunt (Beza).4 —1«5 xvpig éavtov] The reflective pronoun (see crit- 
ical notes) indicates that, as befitted their position, the cérdovio: addressed 
themselves to their own master. Their confidence in him led them to turn to 


1 See Michaelis, JL 2. § 148 ; Saalschiitz, the supplication (of his fellow servant) did 


M. R&R. p. 706 f. not cause him to remember the kindness of 
2 See Kiihner, ad Xen. Anabd. i. 10. 18. his lord.” 
3 Chrysostom appropriately observes : ov 4 Plat. Prot. p. 348 B; Legg. v. p. 733 B; 


7d CXILG THS ikeTHplas aveuvyncev avTov THs TOD Polyb. i. 46. 4; ii. 27.3; 2 Mace. i. 18, ii. 9. 
Searotov didavOpwrias, “the appearance of \ 


‘ 


334 THE GOSPEL OF MATTHEW. 


him rather than to any one else. —éze? rapexdd. pe] because thou entreatedst 
me. And he had not gone so far as to beg for entire remission of the debt, 
but only for forbearance ! 

Ver. 33. On the well-known double «ai used comparatively, see Klotz, ad 
Devar. p. 635.1 — éder] the moral opportuit. —roic Bacavicraic| to the tormentors* 
to torture him, not merely to cast him into prison, which latter was only a 
part of their functions (Fritzsche). The idea involved in Zacavifew is of es- 
sential importance, typifying as it does the future Bdcavoc of Gehenna.* 
Grotius well observes, though he takes the Sacavord¢e as = decpodbdAanac 
(Kuinoel, de Wette), ‘‘ utitur autem hic rex ille non solo creditoris jure, sed 
et judicis,” ‘‘the king uses here not only the right of creditor, but also of 
judge.” — éwe ov axod@] as in ver. 30: until he shall have paid. Though not 
expressly asserted, it is a legitimate inference from the terms of the passage 
(comp. v. 26) to say : rovtéore dujvexdc, obte yap axodacet roré, ‘‘ that is, per- 
petually, for he will never repay him,” Chrysostom. 

Doctrine of the parable: The remission which thou hast obtained from 
God of thy great unpayable debt of sin, must stimulate thee heartily to for- 
give thy brother the far more trifling debt which he has incurred as regards 
thee ; otherwise, when the Messianic judgment comes, the righteousness of 
God will again rise up against thee, and thou wilt be cast into Gehenna to 
be punished eternally ; comp. v. 25 f., vi. 14 f. —That motive, drawn from 
the forgiving mercy of God, could only be exhibited in all its significance 
by the light shed upon it in the atoning death of Christ (Eph. iv. 32, Col. 
ili. 12 f.), so that Jesus had to leave to the future, which was fast approach- 
ing, what, as yet, could be but inadequately understood (so far we have here 
a tatepov mpdtepov), and hence our passage is not inconsistent (Socinian ob- 
jection) with the doctrine (also expressly contained in xx. 28, xxvi. 28) of 
satisfaction. —azé rt. xapd. bu.) from your heart, therefore out of true, inward, 
heartfelt sympathy, not from a stoical indifference. Comp. ver. 33. This 
is the only instance in the New Testament of azé being used in connection 
with this phrase ; elsewhere it is é« that is employed. But comp. the clas- 
sical expressions a70 yraunc, ard orovdyc, ard dpevdc, and the like.* 


1 Baeumlein, Partik. p. 158. xiv. 10. 
2 Dem. 978, 11; 4 Mace. vi. 11. 4 Also amd capdias in Antoninus ii. 3, and 
3 Comp. viii. 29; Luke xvi. 23; Rey. amo7Hs WvxHs. Dem. 580, 1. 


CHAP, XIX. BBs 


CHAPTER XIX. 


Ver. 3. of bapic.] Lachm. has deleted oi, following B C L M A II min. 
Correctly ; the of @ap. would suggest itself mechanically to the transcribers 
from being in current use by them ; in several manuscripts it is likewise in- 
serted in Mark x. 12. — After A¢yovrec Elz. and Scholz insert airé, which, owing 
to the preponderance of evidence against it, is to be regarded as a common in- 
terpolation, as are also avroic, ver. 4, aizyv, ver. 7. — dvOpdérw] is wanting in 
BLT &* min. Aug., deleted by Lachm. Correctly ; supplement from ver. 5, 
and for which Cod. 4 has avdpi (Mark x. 2). — Ver. 5. rpocxoA270.] Lachm. and 
Tisch., also Fritzsche : xoAAn9., following very weighty evidence. The com- 
pound form, however, is more common, and is taken from the LXX. — Ver. 9. 
671 before 6¢ is not, with Lachm. and Tisch. 7, to be deleted. It has the pre- 
ponderance of evidence in its favor, and how readily may it have been over- 
looked, especially before 6c, seeing that it is not indispensable. — Instead of 
py ext ropveta Lachm. has rapexto¢ Adyov ropveiac, following B D, min. It. Or., 
but clearly borrowed from vy. 32 by way of a gloss. For 7, Elz. and Scholz 
have ¢ yj, against decisive evidence ; an exegetical addition. — x. 6 droAedup, 
yal. “oryazar] are deleted by Tisch. 8, following C** DLS 8, vss. Or.? Chrys. 
But there is preponderating evidence in favor of the words, and the homoeote- 
leuton might readily enough be the occasion of their omission. Moreover, there is 
no parallel passage verbally identical with this. — Ver. 13. zpoonvéy8y] Lachm. 
and Tisch. : mpoonvéxOnoav, following BC DL &, min. Or. In presence of such 
weighty evidence, the singular is to be regarded as a grammatical correction. 
— Ver. 16. dyafé] is justly condemned by Griesb. and deleted by Lachm. and 
Tisch. (B DL, min. codd. of It. Or. Hilar.). Inserted from Mark x. 17; 
Luke xviii. 18. — Ver. 17. The Received text (so also Fritzsche and Scholz) has 
Ti we Aéyerc dyabdv ; obdeltc ayafdc ei uy cic 6 Oedc. But the reading: ri we épwrae¢ 
Tepl Tov dyabod ; eig éoTiv 6 ayabéc, is attested by the very weighty evidence of 
BDL 8, Vulg. It. Or. and other vss. and Fathers. So Griesb., Lachm., Tisch. 
The reading of the Received text is taken from Mark and Luke, and would be 
adopted all the more readily the more the original reading seemed, as it might 
easily seem, to be inappropriate.! The order: ei¢ rHv Cunv eice2§. (Lachm., 
Tisch.), has decisive attestation ; but zypei (Lachm., Tisch. 7) for rypqoov finds 
but inadequate support, being favored merely by B D, Homil. Cl.-— Ver, 20. 
égvAasaunv ék vedtytéc pov] Lachm. and Tisch. : é¢vAaga, following important, 
though not quite unanimous, witnesses (B D L &* among the uncial manu- 
scripts ; but D has retained é« vedr., though omitting ov). The reading of the 
Received text is taken from Luke and Mark. — Ver. 23. Lachm. and Tisch., fol- 
lowing decisive evidence, read rAovaroc dvckdAwe. — Ver. 24. Instead of the first 
eiceAGeiv, Elz. has dveAGeiv, Which is defended by Fritzsche and Rinck, and also 


1So also Rinck, Zucubr. crit. p. 268 f. Differently Hilgenfeld in the Theol. Jahrb. 1857, 
p. 414f., but not on critical evidence. 


336 THE GOSPEL OF MATTHEW. 


adopted again by Lachm., in opposition to Griesb., Matth., Scholz, Schulz, 
Tisch., who read eiceAGeiv. The evidence on both sides is very weighty. dveA@eiv 
is a correction for sake of the sense, with which eice/feiv was supposed not to 
agree. Comp. note on Mark x. 25; Luke xviii. 25. If the second eiceAGeiv were to 
be retained, the preponderance of evidence would be in favor of inserting it after 
rAovo.ov (Lachm.) ; but we must, with Tisch., following L Z &, 1, 33, Syrevr 
Or, and other Fathers, delete it as being a supplement from the parallel pas- 
sages. — Ver. 28: For xa? tuetc read, with Tisch. 8, xa? avroi, following DLZ ¥&, 
1, 124, Or. Ambr. The reading of the Received text is an exegetical gloss. 
—Ver. 29. doT1¢] The simple 6¢ (Elz., Griesb., Fritzsche, Scholz) is opposed by 
preponderating evidence ; 7c was omitted as unnecessary (but comp. vii. 21, 
x. 32). —7) yuvaixa] after pyr. is correctly deleted by Lachm. and Tisch., on the 
evidence of B D, 1, Or. Ir. Hil. vss. Taken from Mark and Luke. — For 
éxatovrarAaciova Lachm. and Tisch. have roAAarAaciova, following B L, Syriet 
Sahid. Or. Cyr. Correctly ; it would be much more natural to explain the in- 
definite zoAAatiAac. from Mark x, 30 by means of the definite expression 
éxatovratiac., than to explain the latter from Luke xviii. 30 by means of 
ToAharAac, 


Ver. 1 f. With his usual formula, x. éyév. ore éréA., «.7.A. (vii. 28, xi. 1, 
xiii. 58), Matthew here introduces the account of the closing stage in Christ’s 
ministry by mentioning His departure from Galilee to Judaea. It does not 
follow (comp. note on xvi. 21) that there may nct have been previous visits 
to Judaea (in answer to Baur), but, in order to give to this journey, above 
all, the prominence due to its high significance, it was necessary that the 
Synoptists should confine their view to the Galilaean ministry until the time 
came for this final visit to the capital.—The conversation concerning divorce 
and marriage is likewise given in Mark. x. 1 ff., and, on the whole, ina more 
original shape. — petqpev ard tHe Tada.) Comp. xvil. 22, 24. — répav tov 
‘Topddvov| This expression cannot be intended to define the locale of eic¢ ra 
bpia tHE "Iovdaiac, for the reader knew, as matter of course, that Peraea and 
Judaea (iv. 15, 25) meant different districts, although, according to Ptolem. 
v. 16. 9, several towns east of the Jordan might be reckoned as included in 
Judaea ; neither can it belong to werqpev ard tr. Tad.,* for x. 7AGev eic T. dp. T. 
‘Tovd. is not of the nature of a parenthesis ; rather is it to be regarded as in- 
dicating the route (Mark x. 1) which Jesus took, thus defining 7/@ev (Mark 
vii. 31) somewhat more precisely, lest it should be supposed that He was on 
this side Jordan, and therefore approached Judaea by going through 
Samaria, whereas, being on the farther side of the river, He went by Peraea, 
and reached the borders of Judaea by crossing over to the west side of the 
Jordan (somewhere in the neighborhood of Jericho, xx. 29). The expres- 
sion is not awkward (Volkmar) ; nor, again, is it to be erroneously under- 
stood as showing that the Gospel was written in some district east of the 
Jordan. — Further, the narrative of Matthew and Mark cannot be reconciled 
with that of Luke, who represents Jesus as keeping to this side of the Jordan 
(ix, 51, and see note on xvii. 11) ; nor with the account of John, who, x. 


1 Fritzsche : ‘‘Movens a Galilaea transiit fluvium.’’ 


CHAP, XIX., 3, 4. 307 


22, says nothing about the journey to Jerusalem, but represents Jesus as 
already there, and in ver. 40 as setting owt from that city to make a short so- 
journ in Peraea, —éxe7] that is, in Peraea, just mentioned, and through 
which He was travelling on His way to the borders of Judaea, ver. 1. On 
avrovc (their sick), see Winer, p. 139 [E. T. 183]. Instead of the healing, 
Mark speaks of the teaching that took place on this occasion. 

Ver. 3. Ilecpafovrec] The question was of an ensnaring nature, owing to 
the rivalry that existed between the school of Hillel and that of the more 
rigorous Sammai. See note on vy. 31. There is not the slightest founda- 
tion in the text for the idea that the questioners had in view the matri- 
monial relations of Antipas (Paulus, Kuinoel, de Wette, Ewald), as though 
they wanted to involve Jesus, while yet in Peraea, within that prince’s 
domains, in a fate similar to that of the Baptist. Moreover, the adoption of 
this view is altogether unnecessary, since the whole school of Sammai had 
already condemned that most unlawful state of matters just referred to, and 
therefore there was on this score nothing of a specially tempting character 
about the question. But they expected that Jesus in His reply would 
declare in favor of one of the rival schools (and that it would doubtless be 
that of Sammai ; for with «. zacav airiav they suggested the answer, Wo), 
so that they might be able to stir up party feeling against Him. Falling 
back, however, upon the divine idea on which the institution of marriage 
is founded, He took higher ground than either of the schools in question, 
inasmuch as from this divine idea He deduces that marriage is a union 
which no human authority has a right to dissolve ; but as for Himself, He 
avoids prescribing any law of His own with reference to this matter.’ — ei] 
See note on xii. 10. —ryv yvvaixa aitot| Assuming avfpdzw to be spurious, the 
airov can only refer to something in the context, and that doubtless to the 
logical subject, to the ric implied in the é£ea7v.? — kata racav airiay] for every 
cause, Which he has to allege against her,—the view maintained by the 
school of Hillel, and which was precisely that which gave to this question 
its tempting character, though it is not so represented in Mark. As given 
by the latter evangelist the question is not presented in its original form ; 
as it now stands it would have beén too general, and so not calculated to 
tempt, for it would certainly have been foolish to expect from Jesus any 
answer contrary to the law (in answer to Weiss, Keim) ; but, according to 
Matthew’s version, the persons who were tempting Jesus appear to have 
framed their question with a view to His splitting on the casuistical rock 
implied in x. tacav aitiav. After having laid down as a principle the indis- 
soluble nature of the marriage tie, Jesus, in the course of the conversation, 
replies to this captious point in their query in the very decided terms of 
ver. 9, where He says, uy éxi ropveia. 

Ver. 4. Avroic]* The following airotc should be understood after 6 rougoac, 
as the object of the succeeding verb has often to be supplied after the 


' Comp. Harless, hescheidungsfr. p. 84 ff. prov év 77 BiBAw THs yeverews (i. 27) yéypantat, 


2? For a simjlar classical usage, comp. ‘plainly, human beings; since this saying 
Stailbaum, ad Plat. Rep. p. 503 D. was written in the Book of Genesis (i. 27),’” 


3 §nAadn Tos avOpwrovs: TouTi pév ov Td Euthymius Zigabenus. 


338 THE GOSPEL OF MATTHEW. 


participle.’ For roviv, to create, comp. Plat. Tim. p. 76 C ; Hesiod, Theog. 
110, 127 (yévoc avOpérwr).— az’ apy7c] does not belong to 6 rorjoac (as 
usually explained), in which case it would be superfluous, but to what fol- 
lows (Fritzsche, Bleck), where great stress is laid on the expression, ‘‘ since 
the very beginning” (ver. 8). — apoev k. O72] as male and female, as a pair con- 
sisting of one of each sex. — éroinsev] after 6 xoincac the same verb.” 

Ver. 5. Eizev] God.* Although, no doubt, the words of Gen. ii. 24 were 
uttered by Adam, yet, as a rule, utterances of the Old Testament, in which 
God’s willis declared, are looked upon as the words of God, and that alto- 
gether irrespective of the persons speaking.* — évexev totrov] refers, in Gen. 
li. 24, to the formation of the woman out of the rib of the man. But this 
detail, which belongs to an incident assumed by Jesus to be well known, is 
included in the general statement of ver. 4, so that He does not hesitate to 
generalize, somewhat freely, the particular to which the évexev robrov refers. 
Observe, at the same time, that vv. 4.and 5 together constitute the scriptural 
basis, the divine premisses of what is to appear in the shape of an inference 
in the verse immediately following. — karadeiper] ‘‘ necessitudo arctis- 
sima conjugalis, cui uni paterna et materna cedit,” ‘‘ conjugal necessity is 
the very closest, and to it alone that of father and mother yields,” Bengel. 
—oi dio] These words are not found in the Hebrew, though they occur in 
the Samaritan text, as they must also have done in that which was followed 
by the LXX. They are a subsequent addition by way of more distinctly 
emphasizing the claims of monogamy.® The article indicates the two par- 
ticular persons in question. — ic capxa piav|] Ethical union may also be 
represented by other ties ; but this cannot be said of bodily unity, which 
consists in such a union of the sexes, that in marriage they cease to be two, 
and are thenceforth constituted one person.* The construction is not Greek 
(in which eiva: cic means to refer to anything, or to serve for anything,’ 
but a rendering of the Hebrew 7 Mn (Vorst, Hebr. p. 680 f.). 

Ver. 6. Oixéri| after this union, ver. 5. — eici] are they, that is, the two of 
ver. 5. —6] guod.* —6 6eé¢] through what is said in ver. 5. Observe the 
contrast to dv#pwroc. — Having regard, therefore, to the specific nature of 
marriage as a divine institution, Jesus utterly condemns divorce generally as 
being a putting asunder on the part of man of what, in a very special way, 
God has joined together. With regard to the exception, by which, in fact, 
the essential idea of marriage as a divine institution is already practically 
destroyed, see ver. 9, and comp. note on v. 32. 

Ver. 7. Supposed counter-evidence. — évereiAato] Deut. xxiv. 1, in which, 
indeed, there is no express command, though it may be said to contain xara 
diavorav the prescription of the bill of divorce. Mark—and in this his 
account is certainly more original—represents the whole reply of Jesus as 








1 Kriiger’s note on Xen. Anad. i. 8. 111). ® Comp. Sir. xxy. 25 and Grimm’s note. 

2 See Kiihner, ad Xen. Mem. iv. 2, 21. and 7 Plat. Phil. p. 39 EH; Ale. I. p. 126 A. 
Gramm. TI. 2, p. 656. 8 “Ut non tanquam de duobus, sed 

3 Comp. note on 1 Cor. vi. 16. tanquam de uno corpore loqueretur,” ‘‘so 

* Comp. Euthymius Zigabenus and that it should be declared not as concern- 
Fritzsche on the passage. ing two, but as of one body,” Maldonatus. 


5 See note on 1 Cor. vi. 16. 


CHAP. XIX., 8-10. 339 


. 
beginning with the question as to the law of Moses on the matter (x. 3). 
Moreover, the more appropriate expression érérpewev, which in ver, 8 is as- 
scribed to Jesus (not so in Mark), undoubtedly betrays the influence of riper 
reflection. —Comp. besides, note on v. 31. 

Ver. 8. Ilpéc] out of regard to, with (wise) consideration so as to avert 
greater evil. — oxAnpoxapdiay] stubbornness of heart,’ which will not be per- 
suaded to self-reflection, gentleness, patience, forbearance, etc.* — ob yéyovev 
obra] non ita factum est, namely, that aman should have permission to put 
away his wife. The above primitive institution of God is accordingly not 
abrogated by Moses, who, on account of the moral obduracy of the people, 
is rather to be understood as only granting a dispensation in the form of a 
letter of divorce, that the woman might be protected against the rude 
severity of the man. 

Ver. 9. See note on v. 32. — pu ext ropy.| not on account of fornication, i.e., 
adultery. The deleting of those words? is justified neither by critical evidence, 
which Keim himself admits, nor by the following 6 aroted. yay. woryarat, 
which is in no way inconsistent with the exception under consideration, 
seeing that, as a matter of course, the arojeA. refers to a woman who has 
been divorced arbitrarily, 4) éx? ropy. (see note on v. 82) ; nor by ver. 10, 
where the question of the disciples can be sufficiently accounted for ; nor 
by 1 Cor. vii. 11 (see note on this passage). We are therefore as little war- 
ranted in regarding the words as an interpolation on the part of the evan- 
gelist in accordance with a later tradition.* The exception which they 
contain to the law against divorce is the wnica et adaequata exceptio, because 
adultery destroys what, according to its original institution by God, con- 
stitutes the very essence of marriage, the wnitas carnis; while, on this 
account also, it furnishes a reason not merely for separation a toro et mensa 
(Catholic expositors), but for separation quoad vinculum. To say, as Keim 
Insists (according to Mark), that Jesus breaks with Moses, is unwarranted, 
not only by Matthew’s narrative, but also by Mark’s ; and any indication of 
such a breach would betray the influence of a later age. — povyarac| commits 
adultery, because, in fact, his marriage with the woman whom he has arbi- 
trarily dismissed has not yet been disannulled. The second povyara is jus- 
tified : because this azoAeAvuévy is still the lawful wife of him who has, in 
an arbitrary manner, put her away. 

Ver. 10. This conversation is to be understood as having taken place 
privatum, in a house (Mark x. 10), or elsewhere. — ei obta¢ éoriv 7 aizia, 
k.7.2.] 7% aitia means causa, but not in the sense of res or relation (Grotius) : 
“si ita res se habet hominis eum uxore? (Grimm), which is at variance with 
the Greek usage, and would be tantamount to a Latin idiom ; nor is 
it to be understood in the sense imported by Fritzsche : ‘‘causa qua 


1 Mark xvi. 14; Rom. ii.5; Acts vii. 51; tothem. For he enjoined by law to put 


Sir. xvi. 10; Deut. x. 16. away these, in order that they might not 
* kata Suabdpous aitras p.icovvTwV Tas yajeTas, be slain,’ Euthymius Zigabenus. 

Kai MH KaTadAaTTOmevwv avtais. "EvosodeTyce 3 Hug, de conjug. vinculo indissolub. p. 4 £.3 

yap amoAvey Tatas, iva wy hovevwrTa, ‘ac- Maier’s note on 1 Cor. vii. 11. 

cording to the various reasons of those 4 Gratz, Weisse, Volkmar, Schenkel. 


hating their wives, and not being reconciled 


340 THE GOSPEL OF MATTHEW. 


aliquis cum uxore versari cogatur,” ‘‘ the cause, by which any one may be 
compelled to abide with his wife.” According to the text, 7 airia can 
only be taken as referring back to the question concerning divorce, xara 
racav airiav, ver. 3. The correct interpretation, therefore, must be as fol- 
lows : If it stands thus with regard to the reason in question, which the man 
must have in relation to his wife (in order, namely, to her divorce). The 
Lord had, in fact, declared the zopveia of the wife to be such an airia as the 
disciples had inquired about, and that, moreover, the sole one. This also 
leads me to withdraw my former interpretation of aizia in the sense of guilt, 
that, namely, which was understood to be expressed by the poyarar. 
The correct view is given by Hilgenfeld in his Zeitschr. 1868, p. 24, and, in 
the main, by so early an expositor as Euthymius Zigabenus: éav pia pévg 
éorly # aitia } wécov Tov avdpdc Kk. THe yuvatkd¢ 7 Siatevyviovca, ‘* since there is 
only one cause which separates between husband and wife.” — oi ovyd. yau. | 
because one cannot be released again, but, with the exception of adultery 
alone, must put up with all the woman’s other vices. 

Vy. 11, 12. The disciples have just said : ob ovudéper yanjoa. But to this 
saying must tov Adyov tovrov be referred, not to the statement concerning the 
indissoluble nature of marriage, as though Jesus meant to say that this was 
to be insisted on only in the case of those who had been endowed with the 
donum continentiae,’ which would be to contradict His argument in favor of 
non-dissolution taken from the objective nature of marriage, no less than 
His absolute declaration in v. 32, as well as to render nugatory, for all prac- 
tical purposes, the primitive moral law of non-dissolution, by making it de- 
pendent on a subjective condition. Besides, the illustration of the ewnuchs 
is only applicable to continence generally, not to a mere abstaining from the 
sin of adultery. No. Jesus wishes to furnish His disciples with the neces- 
sary explanation regarding their ot cvudéper yauqjoar, and forthis end He by no 
means questions their Aéyoc, but simply observes that : it is a proposition 
which all do not accept, i.e., which all cannot see their way to adopt as a 
maxim, but only suchas God has endowed with special moral capabilities. Then, 
in ver. 12, He explains who are meant by the olc¢ dédorar, namely, such as 
have become eunuchs ; by these, however, He does not understand literal 
eunuchs, whether born such or made such by men, but those who, for the 
sake of the Messiah’s kingdom, have made themselves such so far as their 
moral dispositions are concerned, i.¢., who have suppressed all sexual desire 
as effectually as though they were actual eunuchs, in order that they might 
devote themselves entirely to the (approaching) Messianic kingdom as their 
highest interest and aim (to labor in promoting it, comp. 1 Cor. vii. 32, 34). 
Finally, He further recommends this ethical self-castration, this ‘‘ voluntary 
chastity” (Luther), when He exclaims : Whosoever is able to accept (to adopt) 
ait (that which I have just stated), let him accept it!’ The yopeiv, ver. 11 f., 


1 Hofmann, Schriftbew. Il. 2, p. 410 f. more earnest by showing that the good 
2 Chrysostom well observes: He says this, work is exceedingly great, and not suffer- 
mpoOvujotépous Te ToLw@Y TH Set~ar Urépoykov ov ing the thing to be shut up in the necessity 
To KaTOpOwiLa, Kal OVK adLets Eis AVaYKNY VO}LOVv of alaw.’’? Comp. 1 Cor. vii. 1 f. 
To mpaywa KAeccOnvat, ‘both making them 


CHAP XEX., 13. d41 
means simply to receive, and to be understood as referring to a spiritual re- 
ception, a receiving in the heart (2 Cor. vii. 2) ; and those endowed with 
the power so to receive it have, in consequence of such endowment, not only 
the inclination to be continent, but at the same time the moral force of will 
necessary to give effect to it, while those who are not so endowed ‘aut 
nolunt, aut non implent quod volunt,” ‘‘are either unwilling, or do not 
attain what they wish,” Augustine. The more common interpretation, praes- 
tare posse," might be traced to the rendering capere, but it is precluded by 
the fact that the object of the verb is a Adyoc (a saying). Others take it in 
the sense of : to understand, with reference, therefore, to the power of ap- 
prehension on the part of the intellect (Maldonatus, Calovius, Strauss, Bret- 
schneider, Baumgarten-Crusius, Ewald ; similarly Bengel, de Wette, Bleek, 
who, however, arbitrarily take rdv Ady. ror. as pointing forward to ver. 12).? 
But the difficulty with respect to what the disciples have said, and what 
Jesus says in ver. 12, is not connected with the apprehension of its meaning, 
but with its ethical appropriation, which, moreover, Jesus does not abso- 
lutely demand, but leaves it, as is also done by Paul, 1 Cor. vii., to each 
man’s ability, and that according as he happens to be endowed with the 
gift of continence as a donum singulare. Consequently, the celibate of the 
clerical order, as such, acts in direct opposition to this utterance of the 
Master, especially as the eivovyifew égavréy cannot be acted on by any one 
with the certainty of its /asting.* As showing how voluntary celibacy was by 
no means universal, and was exceptional even among the apostles them- 
selves, see 1 Cor. ix. 5. — The metaphorical use of edvobyicav éavrotc to denote 
entire absence from sexual indulgence, likewise occurs in Sohar Ex. f. 37, 
ce. 135 ; Levit. f. 34, c. 136 b ; Schoettgen, p. 159. —It is well known that 
from a misunderstanding of the meaning of this passage Origen was led to 
castrate himself. On the correctness of this tradition (in answer to Schnitzer 
and Bauer), see Engelhardt in the Stud. w. Krit. 1838, p. 157 ; Redepen- 
ning, Origenes, I. p. 444 ff.—That Jesus was not here contemplating any 
Exssenian abstinence,* is already manifest from the high estimate in which 
marriage is always held by Him, and from His regard for children. The 
celibacy which a certain class of Essenes observed was founded on the fact 
that they regarded marriage as impure. 

Ver. 18. Comp. Mark x. 13. At this point (after being suspended from 
ix. 51-xviil. 14) the narrative of Luke again becomes parallel, xviii. 15.— 
Little children were brought to Jesus, as to a man of extraordinary sanctity, 
whose prayer was supposed to have peculiar efficacy (John ix. 31) ; as, ina 
similar way, children were also brought to the presidents of the synagogues 


1‘*Negat autem Jesus, te, nisi divinitus 
concessis viribus tam insigni abstinentiae, 
qua a matrimonio abhorreas, parem esse,” 
“But Jesus declared that you are not equal 
(to the effort), unless strength be given you 
from heaven for so remarkable abstinence, 
by which you refrain from marriage,” 
Fritzsche. 

2So Plut. Cat. min. 64; Ael. V. . iii. 9; 


Phocyl. 86 : 0} ywpet peydAny didaxyv adiSaxtos 
axovey, “an ignorant person is incapable 
of hearing a great doctrine,’’ Philo, de mun- 
do 1151: avOpumivos Aoytopos ov Xwpet. 

3Comp. Apol. Conf. A., p. 240 f.: “non 
placet Christo immunda continentia,” ** Im- 
pure continence is not pleasing to Christ.” 

4 Strauss, Gfrorer, Philo, Il. p. 310 f., Hil- 
genfeld. 


342 THE GOSPEL OF MATTHEW. 


in order that they might pray over them (Buxt. Synag. p. 138). The lay- 
ing on of the hands (Gen. xlviii. 14) was desired, not as a mere symbol, but as 
a means of communicating the blessing prayed for (Acts vi. 6) ; hence, with 
a nearer approach to originality, Mark and Luke have simply ayyrac and 
axrera: (which, in fact, was understood to be of itself sufficient for the com- 
munication in question).—The conjunctive with iva after the preterite * serves 
to represent the action as immediately present. — avroic] are those of whom 
the rpooyvéyOy is alleged, 7.e., those who brought the children. The dis- 
ciples wished to protect Jesus from what they supposed to be an unseemly 
intrusion and annoyance ; a verecundia intempestiva, ‘an unseasonable back- 
wardness” (Bengel), as in xx. 31. 

Ver. 14. By rév rovobrwv we are not to understand literal children (Bengel, 
de Wette), for the Messianic kingdom cannot be said to belong to children 
as such (see v. 8 ff.), but men of a child-like disposition and character, 
xviii. 3 f. Jesus cannot consent to see the children turned away from Him ; 
for, so far from their being too insignificant to become the objects of His 
blessing, He contemplates in their simplicity and innocence that character 
which those who are to share in His kingdom must acquire through being 
converted and becoming as little children. If they thus appeared to the 
Lord as types of the subjects of His kingdom, how could He withhold from 
them that prayer which was to be the means of communicating to their 
opening lives the blessing of early fellowship with Him! Herein lies the 
warrant, but, according to 1 Cor. vii. 14, not the necessity, for infant baptism ; 
comp. in general, note on Acts xvi. 15. 

Ver. 16 ff.? Eic] one, a single individual out of the multitude. Accord- 
ing to Luke, the person in question was an apywv, not a veavioxoc (ver. 20), 
which is explicable (Holtzmann) on the ground of a different tradition, not 
from a misunderstanding on the part of Matthew founded on &é veéryr. pov 
(Mark x. 20). —ri ayafov rojow] is not to be explained, with Fritzsche, as 
equivalent to ri ayabiv bv rojow, quid, quod bonum sit, faciam ? for the young 
man had already made an effort to do what is right, but, not being satis- 
fied with what he had done, and not feeling sure of eternal life in the 
Messiah’s kingdom, he accordingly asks : which good thing am I to do, ete. ? 
He wishes to know what particular thing in the category of the eternal 
good must be done by him in order to his obtaining life. 

Ver. 17. Thy question concerning the good thing, which is necessary to 
be done in order to have eternal life in the Messianic kingdom, is quite 
superfluous (ré ye épwrac, k.7.4.) ; the answer is self-evident, for there is but 
one (namely, God, the absolute ideal of moral life) who is the good one, 
therefore the good thing to which thy question refers can be neither more 
nor less than obedience to His will,—one good Being, one good thing, 
alterum non datur ! But if thou (dé, the continuative autem: to tell thee now 
more precisely what I wish to impress upon thee by this cic éoriv 6 ayaféc) 
desirest to enter into life, keep the commandments (which are given by this 


1 Kiihner, II. 2, p. 897; Winer, p. 270 [E. 2 Comp. Mark x. 17 ff.; Luke xviii. 18 ff. 
TsB809)|e 


CHAP. XIX., 18-20. 343 
One ayaiéc). Neander explains incorrectly thus : ‘t Why askest thou me 
concerning that which is good? One is the good one, and to Him thou 
must address thyself ; He has, in fact, revealed it to thee also ; but since 
you have asked me, then let me inform you,” etc. This view is already pre- 
cluded by the enclitic we (as otherwise we should necessarily have had éyé). 
For the explanation of the Received tent, see note on Mark x. 18 ; the claim 
to originality must be decided in favor not of Matthew (in answer to 
Keim), but of Mark, on whom Luke has also drawn. The tradition fol- 
lowed by Matthew seems to have already omitted the circumstance of our 
Lord’s declining the epithet ayaféc. The claims of Mark and Luke are like- 
wise favored by Weisse, Bleek, Weiss, Schenkel, Volkmar, Holtzmann, 
Hilgenfeld, the last of whom, however, gives the palm in the matter of orig- 
inality to the narrative of the Gospel of the Hebrews (WV. 7. extra can. IV. 
p. 16 f.).*— On the dogmatic importance of the proposition that God alone 
is good, see Koster in the Stud. u. Krit. 1856, p. 420 ff. ; and on the funda- 
mental principle of the divine retribution : ei QéAew . 
which impels the sinner to repentance, to a renunciation of his own right- 
eousness, and to faith ; comp. notes on Rom. ii. 13 ; Gal. iii. 10 ff.” 

Ver. 18 f. Agreeably to the meaning of his question, ver. 16, the young 
man expected to be referred to commandments of a particular kind, and 
therefore calls for further information respecting the évtoAd¢ to which Jesus 
referred ; hence roiac, which is not equivalent to rivac, but is to be under- 
stood as requesting a qualitative statement.—For the purpose of indicating 
the kind of commandments he had in view, Jesus simply mentions, by way 
of example, one or two belonging to the second table of the decalogue, but 
also at the same time the fundamental one (Rom, xiii. 9) respecting the love 
of our neighbor (Lev. xix. 18), because it was through 7¢ (for which also see 
note on xxii. 39) He wished the young man to be tested. This latter com- 
mandment, introduced with skilful tact, Origen incorrectly regards as an 
interpolation ; de Wette likewise takes exception to it ; comp. Bleek, who 
considers Luke’s text to be rather more original. 

Ver. 20. In what respect do I still come short ? what further attainment have 
I yet to make ?* This reply * serves to show that his moral striving after the 
Messianic life is confined within the narrow limits of a decent outward be- 
havior, without his having felt and understood the spirit of the eommand- 
ments, and especially the boundless nature of the duties implied in the com- 
mandment of love, though, at the same time, he has a secret consciousness 
that there must be some higher moral task for man, and feels impelled 
towards its fulfilment, only the legal tendencies of his character prevent him 
from seeing where it lies. 


. THPHOOV Tag EvTOAag, 


1 For ovdels ayabds, k.7.A., comp. Plat. Rep. with the Gospel.’ Comp. Apol. Conf. A., 


p. 879 A: ayadds 6 ye Beds TH OTL TE Kal AEKTEOV 
ovtws, *‘the Deity is indeed good in reality, 
and is to be so represented.”’ 

2 Bengel well remarks: ‘‘ Jesus securos 
ad legem remittit, contritos evangelice con- 
solatur,”’ ‘‘ Jesus refers those who feel se- 
cure to the law; the contrite he consoles 


p. 83. 

3 Comp. PS. XXxix.4: lva-yv@ ti VaTEpa éyw; 
Cori sds 243) 2' Cor. x10. 

4 Plat. Rep. p. 484 D: pd’ ev addw pydevi 
péper apetns Votepovrtas, ‘‘those not at all 
coming behind in any department of ex- 
cellence.” 


344 THE GOSPEL OF MATTHEW. 

Ver. 21. Tétevoc] perfect, one, who for the obtaining of eternal life, oidév 
ére botepei. In accordance with the moral tendencies and disposition which He 
discerned in the young man, Jesus demands from him that moral perfection 
to which, from not finding satisfaction in legalism, he was striving to attain. 
The following requirement, then, is a special test for a special case,’ though 
it is founded upon the universal duty of absolute self-denial and devotion to 
Christ ; nor isit to be regarded merely in the light of a recommendation, but 
as.a command. Observe that the Lord does not prescribe this to him as his 
sole duty, but only in connection with axoAoife: wor. It was intended, by 
pressing this requirement upon him, that the young man should be led to 
realize his own shortcomings, and so be enabled to see the necessity of put- 
ting forth far higher efforts than any he had hitherto made. It was meant 
that he should feel himself weak, with a view to his being made morally 
strong ; accordingly it is precisely upon the weak side of the young man’s 
character that Jesus imposes so heavy a task, for with all his inward dissat- 
isfaction he was not aware of his actual weakness in that direction. —zrwyoic | 
the poor. — év oipave] thou wilt have (instead of thy earthly goods) a treasure 
in heaven, i.e., in the hands of God, where it will be securely kept till it comes 
to be bestowed at the setting up of the Messiah’s kingdom.’ 

Ver. 22 f. Avrofuevoc] because he could not see his way to compliance 
with that first requirement, and saw himself thereby compelled to relinquish 
his hope of inheriting eternal life.* — dvoxdAwc] because his heart usually clings 
too tenaciously to his possessions (vi. 19-21) to admit of his resigning them 
at such times and in such ways as the interests of the kingdom may demand. 
For analogous passages from the Greek classics bearing on the antagonism 
between wealth and virtue, see Spiess, Logos Spermat. p. 44. 

Ver. 24.4 For wddv, comp. xviii. 19. The point of the comparison is sim- 
ply the fact of the impossibility. A similar way of proverbially expressing 
the utmost difficulty occurs in the Talmud with reference to an elephant.° 
To understand the expression in the text, not in the sense of a camel, but of 
acable (Castalio, Calvin, Huet, Drusius, Ewald), and, in order to this, either 
supposing «ajAov to be the correct reading (as in several cursive manuscripts), 
or ascribing this meaning to kauydoc (twéc in Theophylact and Euthymius 
Zigabenus), is all the more inadmissible that kdéuyA0¢ never has any other 
meaning than that of a camel, while the form kéjA0¢ can only be found in 
Suidas and the Scholiast on Arist. Vesp. 1030, and is to be regarded as pro- 


Melanch- 


1 The Catholics found upon this passage 
the consilium evangelicum of poverty. as well 
as the opera supererogativa in general. See, 
on the other hand, Miiller, von d. Stinde, I. 
p. 69 ff. ed. 5. 

2 Comp. v. 12, vi. 20. For the whole saying, 
comp. Avoda Sara f. 64,1: ‘* Vendite omnia, 
quae habetis, et porro oportet, ut fiatis 
proselyti,’’ ‘‘Sell all that you have, and 
moreover it is necessary that you become 
proselytes.” 

3 Aurum 
Augustine. 


enervatio virtutum est,” 


4“Nifficultatem exaggerat,” 
thon. 

5 The passage in the Koran, Sw7. vii. 38: 
““Non ingredientur paradisum, donee tran- 
seat camelus foramen acus,” “They shall 
not enter paradise, until a camel pass 
through a needle’s eye,” isto be traced to 
an acquaintance with our present saying ; 
but for an analogous proverb concerning 
the camel which “ sa/tat in cabo,” see Jeva- 
moth f£. 45, 1. See Buxtorf, Lex. Talim. p. 
1722, and Wetstein. 


CHAP. XIX., 25-27. 345 


ceeding from a misunderstanding of the present passage. Further, the pro- 
verbial expression regarding the camel likewise occurs in xxiii. 24, and the 
Rabbinical similitude of the elephant is quite analogous. —eiae/Afeiv after 
pad. is universally interpreted : to enter in (to any place). On the question 
as to whether ja@i¢ is to be recognized as classical, see Lobeck, ad Phryn. 
p- 90. To render this word by a narrow gate, a narrow mountain-pass,* or 
anything but a needle, is simply inadmissible.—The danger to salvation con- 
nected with the possession of riches does not lie in these considered in them- 
selves, but in the difficulty experienced by sinful man in subordinating them 
to the will of God.? 

Ver. 25. Tic dpa] who therefore? if the difficulty is so great in the case of 
the rich, who have the means of doing much good. The inference of the 
disciples is a@ majoribus ad minores. The general expression tic cannot be 
intended to mean what rich man (Euthymius Zigabenus, Weiss), as is further 
evident from what is said by Jesus in vv. 23, 24. 

Ver. 26. "EuBAéyac] This circumstance is also noticed by Mark. The look 
which, during a momentary pause, preceded the following utterance was 
doubtless one of a telling and significant character, and calculated to impress 
the startled disciples (Chrysostom, Euthymius Zigabenus : juépo BAéupare, 
‘‘with a gentle look’’).*— rapa avépéraic] so far as men are concerned, i.e., 
not hominum judicio (Fritzsche, Ewald), but serving to indicate that the im- 
possibility is on the part of man, is owing to human inability, Luke i. 87. — 
tovto| namely, the cwfyva, not : that the rich should be saved. See.ver. 25 
(in answer to Fritzsche, de Wette). Jesus invites the disciples to turn from 
the thought of man’s own inability to obtain salvation, to the omnipotence 
of God’s converting and saving grace. 

Ver. 27. Peter’s question is suggested by the behavior of that young 
man (hence azoxp., see note on xi. 25), who left Jesus rather than part with 
his wealth. The apostles had done quite the contrary (ijueic placed em- 
phatically at the beginning, in contrast to the young man). — agjrapev rave] 
employment, the custom-house, worldly things generally. It is therefore a 
mistake to suppose that the disciples were still pursuing their former avo- 
cations while laboring in the service of Jesus (not to be proved from John 
xxi. 3 ff.).* — ri dpa éorae juiv;| apa: in consequence of this. The question has 
reference to some special compensation or other by way of reward ; but as to 
the form in which it is to be given, it leaves that to be explained by Jesus in 
His reply. In spite of the terms of the passage and the answer of Jesus, 
Paulus incorrectly explains thus : what, therefore, will there be for us still to do ? 
Similarly Olshausen : what is awaiting us? Are we, too, to be called upon yet 
to undergo such a test (as the young man had just been subjected to)? In 
Mark x. 28 and Luke xviii. 28 it is not expressly asked, ri dpa éovae jyiv; 
but the question is tacitly implied in the words of Peter (in answer to 
Neander, Bleek), as reported by those evangelists, while Matthew appears to 
have gleaned it from Mark. 

1 So Furer in Schenkel’s Zea. III. p. 476. Hermas, Pastor, i. 3. 6. 


2So Clemens Alexandrinus: tis 0 ow¢o- 3 Comp. Luke xx. 17; John i. 43. 
“evos mAovatos ; ‘* what Rich Man is saved?’ 4 See Fritzsche, ad Mark. p. 441. 


346 THE GOSPEL OF MATTHEW. 

Ver. 28. This part of the promise is omitted in Mark, but comp. Luke 
xxii. 30. — In answer to the question concerning the reward, Jesus, in the 
first place, promises a special recompense to His disciples, namely, that they 
should have the horor of being associated with Him in judging the nation 
at the second coming * then, in ver. 29 (comp. Mark x. 29 ; Luke xviii. 29), 
He adds the general promise of a reward to be given to those who for His 
sake have sacrificed their worldly interests ; and finally, in ver. 30, He 
makes a statement calculated to rebuke everything in the shape of false pre- 
tensions, and which is further illustrated by the parable in xx. 1 ff. — There 
is no touch of irony throughout this reply of Jesus (in answer to Liebe 
in Winer’s exeget. Stud. I. p. 73).1— év tH Twadsyyevecia] in the regeneration, 
does not belong to dxoAovdjcavréc or (Hilary, explaining the words by 
baptismal regeneration (Titus iii. 5); also Calvin, who understands by raAvy- 
yeveoia the renovation of the world begun in Christ’s earthly ministry), for 
the disciples could only have conceived of the renovation of the world as 
something that was to take place contemporaneously with the actual setting 
up of the kingdom ; the azoxardoraci, Acts ii, 21, does not represent quite 
the same ideaas the one at present in question. Neither are we, with Paulus, 
to insert a point after radvyyev., and supply éore (‘‘ you are already in the 
position of those who have been regenerated,” spiritually transformed), 
which would have the effect of introducing asomewhat feeble and irrelevant 
idea, besides being incompatible with the abruptness that would thus be 
imparted to the érav (otherwise one should have expected éray dé). The 
words belong to kaficecte, and signify that change by which the whole world is 
to be restored to that original state of perfection in which it existed before the fall, 
which renewal, restitutio in integrum, is to be brought about by the coming 
Messiah (ONIN win). When the resurrection is over, and the last judg- 
ment is going on (and it is to this part of the scene that the Lord is here re- 
ferring), this renovation will have already begun, and will be in the course 
of development, so that Jesus can say with all propriety : év rm raAuyy.* 
Augustine, Theophylact, Euthymius Zigabenus, Fritzsche, interpret the ex- 
pression of the reswrrection, in favor of which such passages might be 
quoted as Long. iii. 4 ; Lucian, Muse. enc. 7 ; but this would be to understand 
it in too restricted asense, besides being contrary to regular New Testament 
usage (dvdoracic). —brav Kabion, K.t.4.] as judge. —dé6En¢ abrov] the throne, 
that is, on which the Messiah shows Himself in His glory, xxv. 31. —x«ai 
abroé (see critical notes) : likewise, just as the Messiah will sit on His throne. 
— xabiceobe| you will take your seats upon. Christ, then, is to be understood 
as already sitting. Moreover, though the promise applies, in a general way, 
to the twelve disciples, it does not preclude the possibility of one of them 
failing, through his apostasy, to participate in the fulfilment of the promise.* 





1 Comp. Fleck, de Regno div. p. 436 ff. Bengel. Comp. maacyyevecia tas marpidos in 


2 See Buxtorf, Lex. Talm.p.712 ; Bertholdt, 
Christol. p. 214 f.; Gfrorer, Jahrh. d. Heils, 11. 
p. 272 ff. Comp. Rom. viii. 19 ff.; 2 Pet. iii. 13. 

3 “ Nova erit genesis, cui preerit Adamus 
secundus,”’ ‘‘ There will be a new creation, 


over which the second Adam will preside,” 


Joseph. Antt. xi. 3.9; wadvyyev. Tov OAwy in 
Anton. xi. 1. Philo, de mwwnd. p. 1165 C. ; leg. 
ad Caj. p. 1037 B. 

4“Thronum Judae sumsit alius, Acts i. 
20,” ‘* Another has taken the throne of 
Judas, Acts i. 20,” Bengel. 


. 


CHAP; (XIX:, 29; 347 


xpivovrec] not : ruling over (Grotius, Kuinoel, Neander, Bleek), but, as the 
word means and the context requires : judging. As believers generally are 
to be partakers of the glory and sovereignty of Christ (Rom. viii. 17 ; 2 Tim. 
ii. 12), and are to be associated with Him in judging the non-Christian 
xéopuoc (1 Cor, vi. 2), so here it is specially promised to the disciples as such 
that they shall have the peculiar privilege of taking part with Him in judg- 
ing the people of Israel. But it is evident from 1 Cor. vi. 2 that the people of 
Israel is conceived of as still forming part of the xécuoc, therefore it will be so 
far still wneonverted, which coincides with the view that the second coming 
is near at hand, x. 23. It is a mistake, therefore, to take the people of Israel 
as intended to represent the people of God in the Christian sense (de Wette, 
Bleek) ; but it isno less so to suppose that the judging in question is merely 
of an indirect character, such as that which in xii. 41 is ascribed to the 
queen of the south and the Ninevites (Chrysostom, Euthymius Zigabenus, 
Erasmus, Maldonatus),—a view which does not at all correspond with the 
picture of the judgment given in the text, although those expositors cor- 
rectly saw that it is the wnbelieving Israel that is meant. This sitting upon 
twelve thrones belongs to the accidental, Apocalyptic form in which the 
promise is embodied, though it is not so with regard either to the judging 
itself or its special reference to the dwdexdgvaov of Israel (Acts xxvi. 7), to 
which latter the number of the apostles expressly corresponds ; for the second 
coming, instead of subverting the order of things here indicated, will only 
have the effect of exhibiting it in its perfection, and for the apostles them- 
selves in its glory. It is therefore too rash to infer, as has been done by 
Hilgenfeld, that this passage bears traces of having been based upon an 
original document of a strictly Judaco-Christian character. Even the Pau- 
line Luke (xxii. 30) does not omit this promise, although he gives it in 
connection with a different occasion,—a circumstance which by Schnecken- 
burger, without sufficient reason, and by Volkmar, in the most arbitrary 
way possible, is interpreted to the disadvantage of Matthew. It is not the 
case that ver. 28 interferes with the connection (Holtzmann), although 
Weizsiicker also is disposed to regard it as ‘‘a manifest interpolation.” 
Ver. 29. The promise that has hitherto been restricted to the apostles 
now becomes general in its application : and (in general) every one who, 
etc. —adzjxev] has left, completely abandoned. Comp. ver. 27. — évexev rt. 
ov. w.| 7.e., because my name represents the contents of his belief and con- 
fession.* This leaving of all for the sake of Jesus may take place without 
persecution, simply by one’s choosing to follow Him as a disciple ; but it 
may also be forced upon one through persecution, as for instance by such a 
state of matters as we find in x. 35 ff. — roA%arAaciova (see critical notes) 
Ayjera, according to the context (see xabiceche, ver. 28 3 KAypovowhoer, ver. 
29; écovra, ver. 30), can certainly have no other reference but to the 
recompense in the future kingdom of the Messiah, in which a manifold com- 
pensation will be given for all that may have been forsaken. Here the 
view of Matthew diverges from that of Mark x. 38, Luke xviii. 30, both of 
whom represent this manifold compensation as being given during the 





1 Comp. Luke xxi. 12. 


348 THE GOSPEL OF MATTHEW. 


period preceding the second advent. This divergence is founded upon a 
difference of conception, existing from the very first, regarding the promise 
of Jesus, so that the distinction between the xarpd¢ ovtoc and the aid épyé- 
uevoc in Mark and Luke may be regarded as the result of exegetical reflec- 
tion on the meaning of the expressions in the original Hebrew. The words 
are likewise correctly referred to the reward of the future world by de 
Wette, Bleek, Keim, Hilgenfeld, while Fritzsche is at a loss to decide. In 
opposition to the context, the wswal interpretation in the case of Matthew 
as well, is to refer the promise of a manifold compensation to the aidy obroe, 
some supposing it to point to the happiness arising from Christian ties and 
relationships, as Jerome, Theophylact, Euthymius Zigabenus, Erasmus, 
Grotius, Wetstein ; others, to the receiving of all things in return for the 
few (1 Cor. iii. 21 ; Olshausen) ; others, again, to inward peace, hope, the 
fellowship of love (Kuinoel, Calvin), or generally, the spiritual blessings of 
believers (Bengel) ; and others still, to Christ Himself, as being (xii. 49 f.) 
infinitely more to us than father, mother, brother, etc. (Maldonatus, Calo- 
vius). Julian mocked at the promise. —k. Cony ai. KAnp.| the crown of the 
whole, which perfects all by rendering it an eternal possession. Observe, 
further, how what is promised is represented as a recompense, no doubt, 
yet not for meritorious works, but for self-denying, trustful obedience to 
Christ, and to His invitation and will.’ 

Ver. 30. However, the measure of rewards in the Messianic kingdom is 
not to be determined by the time, sooner or later, at which any one may 
have entered into fellowship with me. No, it is not seniority of disciple- 
ship that is to be the standard of reward at the setting up of the approach- 
ing kingdom : Many who were the first to enter will receive just the same treat- 
ment as those who were the last to become my followers, and vice versi. The 
correct construction and translation are not those of Fritzsche, who inter- 
prets : Many will be first though last (éoxaro bvrec, namely, before the second 
coming), and last though first (xpoéro dvrec), but those usually adopted, 
according to which zpéro: is the subject of the first, and éovaro that of the 
second part of the sentence. This is not forbidden by xx. 16, where, on 
the other hand, the order seems to have been inverted to suit the context. 
Observe, further, that the arrangement by which roddol . . . mparo stand 
so far apart serves to render roAAoi very emphatic : In multitudes, however, 
will the first be last, and vice versd. The second clause is to be supple- 
mented thus : xai roAAot écovrae écyato. tp@ro. But to understand xpdro 
and écyaro. as referring, not to time, but to rank, regarded from the divine 
and human point of view, as though the idea were that ‘‘ when the rewards 
come to be dispensed, many a one who considers himself among the highest 
will be reckoned among the lowest” (Hilgenfeld, following Euthymius 
Zigabenus, Erasmus, Jansen, Wetstein, de Wette, Bleck),—is forbidden by 
the subsequent parable, the connection of which with the present passage is 
indicated by yap. However, there is a little warrant in the text for taking 
the words as referring specially to the Jews on the one hand, and the Gen- 
tiles (who were later in being called) on the other (Theophylact, Grotius). 


1 Comp. Apol. Conf. A., p. 285 f. 


CHAP. XX. 349 


CHAPTER XxX. 


Ver. 6. dpav] is, with Lachm. and Tisch., to be deleted as a supplement, 
following BDL 8, vss. Or. — éordrac] Elz., Fritzsche, Scholz insert apyove, 
which is not found in B C** DL 8, vss. and Fathers. Interpolation taken 
from vy. 3 and 7. — Ver. 7. k. 6 éav 7 dixaiov, Anpeobe] is wanting in important 
codd. (BD LZ), vss. and Fathers. Deleted by Lachm. and Tisch. For 
Zijpeobe, several vss. have dabo vobis. The words are a very ancient interpola- 
tion, in conformity with ver. 4. — Ver. 8, Delete atdroic, with Tisch. 8, following 
CLZX8, Or. A supplement. — Ver. 10. rAeiova] Fritzsche, Lachm. and Tisch. 
7: wieiov, following BC* N Z A, min. vss. Or. The reading of the Received 
text is of the nature of an explanation (a greater number of denarii). — For ava 
read 76 ava, with Tisch., following CL N Z &, 33. The article was omitted in 
conformity with ver. 9. — Ver. 12. 67-] does not occur, it is true, in B C** D &, 
1, Vulg. It. Syr., and is deleted by Lachm. and Tisch. ; but how readily may it 
have been overlooked before otto: !— Ver. 15. The first 7 is deleted by Lachm., 
following B D L Z, Syre™ Arm. (in accordance with which evidence, as well as 
that of 8, the arrangement 6 0éAw rorjoa: should be restored). Correctly ; an 
old interpolation for the purpose of marking the question. There would be no 
motive whatever for omitting the 7. For the second 7 (in Elz.) we should, with 
Tisch. 7, read ei, following B**H ST, Chrys. Did. and many min. From not being 
understood, ei was all the more readily replaced by 7, owing to the pronuncia- 
tion being much the same. — Ver. 16. roAdoi yap eior KAnToi, dAiyou O& éKAeKTOL] 
omitted in BL Z 8, 36, Copt. Sahid., and deleted by Tisch. 8, with whom Keim 
concurs. But it is not at all likely that the words would be interpolated from 
xxii. 14 ; for, so far from there having been any occasion for so doing, they 
have here more the appearance of being out of place than otherwise. This ap- 
parent irrelevancy may have led to the omission of the saying, which is sup- 
ported by testimony so old as that of C D, It. Syr., unless we suppose it to 
have been due rather to the simple homoeoteleuton éoyaTOI.. . éxAex TOL, — 
Ver. 17. év rH 6d@ kai] read with Lachm. and Tisch.: kai év 77 66@, following 
BLZ&, min. Copt. Sahid. Arm. Persp. Or. (twice). At avery early period 
(Vulg. It. Hil.), ¢v 77 66@ was omitted either accidentally, or because it is like- 
wise awanting in the parallel passages in the other Synoptists. But, in restor- 
ing it, it would most naturally occur to those who did so to insert it after Kar’ 
idiav. — Ver. 19. dvaorgcerat] Tisch. : éyep§ycetar, following C* LN Z ®, Or, 
Chrys. The reading of the Received text is taken from the parallel passages. — 
Ver. 22. rive ;] Elz., Scholz insert: «ai (Scholz: 7) 70 Bartioya, 6 éyd Barrifouar, 
Bartiobiva, against BD LZ X&, 1, 22, the majority of vss. and Or. Epiph. 
Hilar. Jer. Ambr. Juv. Taken from Mark x. 38. — Ver. 23. rieoHe] Elz., Scholz, 
in opposition to the same witnesses, insert : ka? (Scholz: 7) To Barriopya 6 Eye 
Bamrigvouat, BaxticOyocobe. — Ver. 26. ora év buiv] for éorar, Lachm. has éoriv, 
following B D Z, Cant. Sahid. Correctly ; the reading of the Received text is 
an alteration to suit what follows in this and the 27th verse, where, with 


350 : THE GOSPEL OF MATTHEW. 


Fritzsche, Lachm. Tisch. 8, we ought to read éora: instead of: foro, in accord-— 
ance with preponderating evidence ; éo7w (likewise derived from Mark x. 43) is a 
gloss, But Fritzsche was scarcely warranted in restoring 0é after obzwc, ver. 

26, for it is condemned by decisive evidence, and is a connecting particle bor- 
rowed from Mark. — Ver. 31. éxpafov] Lachm. Tisch. 8: éxpagav, following B D 
L ZI &, min. Copt. Sahid. A repetition from ver. 30. — Ver. 33. avo.yOaow 
nu. 0. 609.) Lachm. Tisch. 8: avorydou oi 600. ju., following BDL Z &, min. 

Or, Chrys. To be adopted, inasmuch as the first aorist was the more common 
tense, comp. ix. 30, John ix. 10. — Ver. 34. d¢6aAuov] BD L Z, min. Or. have 
éuunatov. So Lachm., Rinck, Tisch. 8. Correctly ; the more usual term has been 
adopted from the context. — Lachm. and Tisch. 8 delete avrév of d¢baAuoi after 
dvéBaewav. The words are not found inBDL Z 8, min. vss. (also Vulg. It.) 
and afew Fathers, but they were left out as being superfluous and cumber- 

some, ‘There was no motive whatever for inserting them. 


Remark.—After ver. 28 there occurs in D (and in codd. of It. with many 
variations in detail) the following interpolation, apocryphal, no doubt, but 
akin to Luke xiv. 8 ff.: dwetc dé Gyreite Ex pxpov adbéijoar x. Ex peiCovoc éarTov 
elvat, Hicepyduevor dé kat mapaxaAnfévrec Seutvicat py) avakdivecbe sic rove ééyov- 
Tac Térouc, un Tote EvdosoTEpbc cov ETEADH, Kal mpooeADdY 6 SetmvoKARTwp ein Cot 
éte KATO YOpel, Kai KaTaoyvvOnon. "Eav dé avaréone ei¢ Tov ATTOva Térov Kai EMEAOn 
cov HiTwV, épel Col Oo OeiTVOKAHTWP" GbVayE ETL GVW, Kal ~EoTAL COL TODTO YpPHOLMOD : 
‘But seek ye to increase from little, and from greater to be less. Moreover, 
being invited to supper, do not recline in the choice places, lest a more honor- 
able man than thou approach, and he who invites to supper come to thee and 
say, Go down still lower, and thou be put toshame. But if thou art reclining in 
an inferior place, and one less than thou come up, he who invites to supper 
will say to thee, Go up still higher, and this will be profitable to thee.’’ Comp. 
Hilar., also Syrc"’. 


Ver. 1. The parable is peculiar to Matthew.—ydp] explaining and con- 
firming what has been said in xix. 30. — av§p. oixod.|] See notes on xiii. 24, 
XVilil. 23. — dua rpwi] Comp. notes on xiii. 29, Acts xxviil. 23: ard rpwi.1 — 
elc TOV auTed. avtov| into his vineyard, into which he wished to send them, 
ver. 2. Comp. Acts vii. 9 ; and see, in general, Wilke, Rhetor. p. 47 f.? 

Ver. 2. ’Ex dyvapiov tiv juépav| After he had agreed with the laborers, on 
the condition that he was to pay them a denarius per day. éx does not denote 
the payment itself (which would have been expressed by the genitive, ver. 
13), although é« dyvap. is that payment (xxvii. 7; Acts i. 18) ; but it is 
intended to indicate that this payment was the thing, on the strength of 
which, as terms, the agreement was come to.? 77 juépav is the accusative, 
as further defining the terms of the agreement : in consideration of the day, 
so that a denarius was to be the wages for the (current) day during which 


1 Classical writers would say : ama éw, aua Miinchmeyer, ivid. p. 728. For proof that 
TH HwEpa, aa OpOpw, and such like. itis not to be regarded as furnishing direc- 
2 On the whole parable, see Rupprecht in tions for the regulation of offices, see Kést- 
the Stud. u. Krit. 1847, p. 396 ff.; Steffensen, lin, d. Wesen d. Kirche, 1854, p. 52 ff. 
ibid. 1848, p. 686 ff.; Besser inthe Luther. 3 Comp. Kiihner, II. 1, p. 399 f. 
Zettschy. 1851, p. 122; Rudel, ibid. p. 511; 


CHAP. XX., 3-12. dL 


they might work. Asan accusative of time @which it is usually supposed to 
be), it would not correspond with cvzgor. to which it belongs. — A denarius 
was the wswal wages for a day’s work (Tob. v. 14). See Wetstein. 

Ver. 3. The third hour : somewhere about nine o’clock in the morning. In 
ordinal numbers the article is unnecessary. See note on 2 Cor. xii. 2. — év 
7h ayopz| where they were waiting in expectation of getting employment. 
The men in question belonged to the class of free laborers.’ 

Ver. 4. Kakeivoic| to those also he spoke. The point of assimilation (also) 
lies in the circumstance that, as he had invited the first, so he now invites 
these also to go into the vineyard. — 6 éav 7 dixatov| so that, as part of the 
day had already elapsed, he did not make with them any definite agreement 
as to wages for the day, and therefore acted differently in this case from 
what he had done in the former. 

Ver. 5 ff. "Exoigcev cattwc| the same thing, namely, as he had done in the 
preceding case, ver. 4, sending them away, and promising them also only 
what was equitable. Comp. ver. 7. — o7c] because. 

Ver. 8. ‘Owiac dé yev.] é.e., at the close of the twelfth hour (six o’clock in 
the evening). — 76 éxitpéx@ aitov] the chief of the servants (oixovduoc), to 
whom was entrusted the management of the household, Luke viii. 3. —7rov 
picOdv] the wages in question. The oixovduoc had instructions from his master 
to give the same amount of wages to all, although all had not wrought the 
same number of hours. — éwe tov mpdtwr| is connected with azddoc air. Tr. 
puc#., without anything requiring to be understood (and continuing, and 
such like), as is evident from those passages in which the terminus ad quem 
is placed jirst.? 

Ver. 9 ff. Oi rept tiv évdex. Gpav| that is, those who, according to ver. 6, 
were sent into the vineyard about the eleventh hour. —riciov| more than a 
denarius, plainly not more denarii. —avd] used distributively.* The article 
76 before ava dyv., ver. 10 (see critical notes), denotes : the sum amounting in 
each case to a denarius, so that in analyzing év would require to be supplied. 
— According to ver. 10 f., they do not contemptuously decline to lift the 
denarius (Steffensen), but begin to murmur after receiving it (Miinchmeyer). 

Ver. 12. Orc] recitative, not because (yoyyifouev, ore), inasmuch as the words 
éyovtec Ort, K.T.2. express the contents of the yoyyitew. —oiro] spoken dis- 
dainfully. — éroiycav| they have spent one hour.‘ The ordinary interpreta- 
tion : they have wrought, labored, one hour, is in opposition to the terms of 
the passage (as little is it to be confirmed by an appeal to Ruth ii. 19, where 
xov éroinoac Means : where hast thou been occupying thyself ?) ; there would 
have been more reason to interpret thus: they have been doing it (that is, 
the work) for one hour, if the specifying of the time in connection with 





1 Poll. iii. 82: éAeVOepor pév, dca meviay dé én” Luke xxiii. 5; Acts i. 21; John viii. 9. 


apyuptw SovAevortes, *‘free men, but on ac- 3 Winer, p. 372 [E. T. 496]. 
count of poverty serving for money.”’ AACS) Ve Coy ENVAllumieoin ee) GOr mexiemeoe 


2¥For example, Plat. Legg. vi. p. 771 C; Eccles. vi. 12; Wetstein on this passage ; 
magas Tas Stavouas Eyer méxpt Tov buSexa amo Schaeffer, ad Bos. p. 313; Jacobs in Anthol. 
pas apéduevos, ‘it has all the distributions, IX. p. 449, X. p. 44. 
beginning from one up td twelve.’’ Comp. 


| 852 THE GOSPEL OF MATTHEW. 


éxoiyoav had not suggested our explanation as the most obvious and most 
natural. — r+. xavowva | Those others had not entered till the evening. 

Vv. 13-15. ‘Evi] One, as representing the whole. — éraipe] Comrade, a 
mild way of introducing a rebuke, similar to ‘‘ good friend” among ourselves.” 
So also ayafé, BéAtiote.” —ovK adiko ce] From the standpoint of justice. — 
Snvapiov| genitive of price. Somewhat different from the idea of ver. 2. — 
@éAw dé] ‘Summa hujus vocis potestas,” ‘‘the force of this word is the very 
highest,” Bengel. — év roi¢ éuoic| not to be taken in the general sense of : in 
my affairs (Fritzsche, de Wette), but, according to the context, to be under- 
stood in the more definite sense of : in disposing of my own property.* — ei 6 
6d0aAudc cov, K.t.A.] see critical notes. The ei is not interrogative, as in xii. 
10, xix. 3 (for, according to the connection, the doubt implied in such a 
question would be entirely out of place), but the speaker is to be regarded 
as saying that, though such and such be the case, his right to do what he 
pleases with his own is by no means impaired, so that «i may be taken as 
almost equivalent to ei cai :* if thine eye is evil (¢.e., envious, comp. Mark vii. 
22, and 1, Prov. xxviii. 22; Ecclus. xiv. 10), because I (I, on my part, 
hence éy#) am good! The mark of interrogation after évoic is therefore to 
be deleted. 

Ver. 16. The teaching of the parable : So,—just, as in the case here sup- 
posed, those who were the last to be sent into the vineyard received the same 
amount of wages as the first ; so in the Messiah’s kingdom, the /ast will be on 
the same footing as the first, and the first as the last, without a longer period 
of service giving an advantage, or a shorter putting to a disadvantage. 
Comp. xix. 30:—éoovra] that is, practically, as far as the reward they 
are to receive is concerned. The first will be dast, inasmuch as the 
former receive no more than the latter (in answer to de Wette’s objection, 
as though, from the expression here used, we would require to suppose that 
they will receive less than a denarius). There is nothing whatever in the 
text about the exelusion of the spore: from the kingdom, and the admission of 
the écyaro ;° and as little to favor the view, adopted by Steffensen : those 
who esteem themselves last shall be first, and those who esteem themselves first shall 
be last, for the laborers in the parable were in reality éoyato. and rparo:. 
The proposition : ‘‘ that, in dispensing the blessings of the kingdom of 
heaven, God takes no account of human merit, but that all is the result of 
His own free grace” (Rupprecht, Bleek, Holtzmann, Keim), does not con- 
stitute the leading thought set forth in the parable, though, no doubt, it may 
be supposed to underlie it. — roAAoi yap, x.r.A.] Confirmation of what has 
just been said about the écyaro being put upon an equality with the 
mparo: : ‘*for although many are called to share in the future recompense 
for services rendered to the Messiah’s kingdom, yet those chosen to receive 
rewards of a pre-eminent and peculiarly distinguished character in that 
kingdom are but few.” These éxZexrof are not the éoyaro (those, as Ols- 


1 Comp. xxii. 12, xxvi. 50. 969 C. 
2See Herm. ad Vig. p. 722. Comp. Wet- 4 Jacobs, Del. Epigr. p. 405; Hartung, 
stein. Partikell. Il. p. 212; Kiihner, II. 2, p. 991. 


3 Comp. ro oév, and Plato, Legg. ii. p. 5 Krehl in the Sdchs. Stud. 1848. 


CHAP. KX, 16: 353 


hausen fancies, whose attitude toward the kingdom is of a more spontaneous 
nature, and who render their services from hearty inclination and love), but 
those who are selected from the multitude of the «Ayroi. Weare taught in 
the parable what it is that God chooses them for, namely, to be rewarded in 
an extraordinary degree (to receive more than the denarius). The train of 
thought, then, is simply this: It is not without reason that I say: kai oi 
mporo éoyaro, for, from this equalizing of the first with the last, only a few 
will be excepted,—namely, those whom God has selected for this from 
among the mass of the called. Thus the parable concludes, and that very 
appropriately, with language which, no doubt, allows the Apostles to con- 
template the prospect of receiving rewards of a peculiarly distinguished char- 
acter (xix. 28), but does not warrant the certainty of it, nor does it recognize 
the existence of anything like so-called valid claims ; for, according to the 
idea running through the parable, the écAoyq is to be ascribed simply to the 
purpose of God (Rom. ix. 11, 15 f.). See ver. 15. Comp. also note on 
xxii. 14. 


Remarx.—The simple application of ver. 16 ought to warn against arbitrary 
attempts to trace a meaning in all the little details of the parable, many of 
which belong to the mere drapery of the story. The householder is God ; the 
vineyard is the Christian theocracy, in which work is to be done in the interests 
of the approaching kingdom of the Messiah ; the oixovduoc is Christ ; the twelfth 
hour, at which the wages are paid, is the time of the second coming; the other 
hours mark the different periods at which believers begin to devote themselves 
to the service of God’s kingdom ; the denarius denotes the blessings of the Mes- 
sianic kingdom in themselves, at the distribution of which the circumstance of 
an earlier entrance into the service furnishes no claim toa fuller measure of 
reward, however little this may accord with human ideas of justice ; hence the 
mparo. are represented as murmuring, whereupon they are dismissed from the 
master’s presence. Calvin appropriately observes: ‘‘ hoc murmur asserere no- 
luit ultimo die futurum, sed tantum negare causam fore murmurandi,’’ ‘‘ He was 
unwilling to affirm that this murmur would be at the last day, but only to declare 
that there would not be cause for murmuring.” But there is nothing to warrant 
the view that, inasmuch as they consented to be hired only for definite wages, 
the rparoc betrayed an wnworthy disposition, while those who came later exhib- 
ited a more commendable spirit in being satisfied simply with the promise of 6 
édv 7) dixatcov, Tt can only be of service in the way of edifying application, but 
it is not reconcilable with the historical sense of the passage, to explain the dif- 
ferent hours as referring to the different stages of life, childhood, youth, man- 
hood, and old age (Chrysostom, Theophylact, Euthymius Zigabenus), inasmuch 
as they are meant to represent various periods between the time of Christ and 
the close of the aidv obroc, at which the second coming is to take place, and are 
therefore to be regarded as exhibiting the time embraced by the generation 
then existing (xvi. 28) under the figure of a day with its various divisions. 
Origen supposed that the allusion was to the leading epochs of history from 
the beginning of the world (1) till the flood ; (2) till Abraham ; (3) till Moses ; (4) 
till Christ ; (5) till the end of the world. This view is decidedly forbidden by 
xix. 29f. Yet similar explanations, based upon the history of the world, are 
likewise given by Theophylact and others. No less foreign is the reference to 


aD4 THE GOSPEL OF MATTHEW. 


the Jews and Gentiles, which Grotius, but especially Hilgenfeld, following 
Jerome, has elaborated, so that the first of the laborers.are taken to represent 
the Jews, whose terms of service, so to speak, are distinctly laid down in the 
law, and subsequently reaffirmed, at least, in an indefinite form ; while those 
who come last are supposed to represent the Gentiles, who, in accordance 
with the new covenant of grace, receive, and that before all the others, pre- 
cisely the same reward as those who were the first to be called. Scholten is 
disposed to think that the parable was also intended to expose the pretensions 
ot the Jews to precedence and distinction in the kingdom. 


Vy. 17-19. According to the Synoptists, Jesus now takes occasion, as He 
approaches Jerusalem (avaj. ei¢ ‘Iepoo. is the continuation of the journey 
mentioned in xix. 1), to intimate to His disciples more plainly and distinctly 
than before (xvi. 21, xvil. 22) His impending fate.’— Kar’ idiav]? There 
were others travelling along with them. — @avdrw] dative of direction : even 
to death.* ‘This is in accordance with later Greek usage.* On the prediction 
of the resurrection, see note on xvi. 21. 

Ver. 20. Tére] after the announcement in vv. 17-19. Salome, His 
mother’s sister (see note on John xix. 25), was one of those women who 
were in the habit of accompanying Jesus, xxvii. 56; Mark xv. 40, xvi. 1. 
She may have heard from her sons what He, xix. 28, had promised the apos- 
tles. —aitoica tu] making a request. It is to anticipate to suppose zz to 
imply aliquid magni (Maldonatus, Fritzsche). Comp. ver. 21, ré 0éAecc.° 

Ver. 21. She thus designates the two most distinguished positions in the 
Messiah’s kingdom. For among Orientals the foremost place of honor was 
considered to be immediately on the right, and the next immediately on the 
left of the king.® Wetstein and Paulus on this passage. She desired to see 
her sons not merely in the position of ordinary ovyKAnpovéuor and cvuaciA- 
evovrec (Rey. ili. 21), but in that of the most distinguished proceres regni. — 
eité iva] as in iv. 8. The fact that the gentle and humble Join should also 
have shared this wish (for both the disciples, in whose name also the mother is 
speaking, are likewise to be regarded as joining in the request, ver. 22, so 
that there cannot be said to be any essential difference between the present 
passage and Mark x. 35), shows how much his character must subsequently 
have been changed.” 

Ver. 22. Ovx oidate, x.7.A.] You do not understand what is involved in your 
request ; you do not seem to be aware that the highest stages of cvyPa- 
oAeberw *in my kingdom cannot be reached without previously sharing in 
such sufferings as I have to endure. Jesus addresses the two disciples them- 
selves. — divacbé] said with reference to moral ability. — 7rd rorfpiov] D3, 


1 Comp. Mark x. 32 ff. ; Luke xviii. 31 ff. ad Phryn. p. 475; Grimm’s note on Wisd. as 
2 Sore ovK Eder TaVTA abety TOUS TOAAOUS, tva above. 
py ckavdadicbwocv, ** because it was not nec- 5 On the present participle, see Kiihner, 


essary for the multitude to learn these II. 2, p. 622 f.; Dissen, ad Pind. Ol. vii. 14; 
things, lest they should be caused to  Bornem. ad Xen. Anab. vii. 7. 17. 
stumble,’ Euthymius Zigabenus. 6 Joseph. Anfé. vi. 11. 9. 

3 See Winer, p. 197 f. [E. T. 263]. 7 Comp. Introduction to John, § 3- 

4 Comp. Wisd. ii. 20; 2 Pet. ii. 6; Lobeck, 8 2 Tim. ii. 12 ; 1 Cor. iv. 8. 


CHAP. XX., 23-25. 395 
figurative description of his fate generally, and of his sufferings in par- 
ticular.’ 

Ver. 23. The disciples reply : dvvaueba, not because they did not quite 
understand what Jesus meant (ver. 18 f.), but because they were animated 
by asincere though self-confident determination, such, too, as was afterwards 
sufficiently verified in the case of both, only in somewhat different ways. — 
ovK got éudv dovvat, GAN oic¢ Hroiu. bxd Tov raTp. .] 8c. Soffoera : is not my 
business (does not behove me) to give, but it will be given to those for whom 
it has been prepared (has been put in readiness, xxv. 34 ; 1 Cor. ii. 9) by my 
Father.? Jesus thus discourages the questionable request by frankly de- 
claring that the granting of what has just been asked is one of those things 
which God has reserved to Himself ; that it is a matter with which he, the 
Son, must not interfere. For another instance of such reservation on the 
part of the Father, see xxiv. 36 ; Mark xiii. 32. This evident meaning of 
the words is not to be explained away or modified. The former has been 
done by Chrysostom and his successors, also by Castalio, Grotius, Kuinoel, 
who took a/Ad as equivalent to e yf ; the latter by Augustine, Luther, ac- 
cording to whom the words as man (‘‘secundum formam servi’’) are to be 
understood, and Bengel, who modifies ov« éorvw éudv dovvac by erroneously 
supplying the words : till after my death. Further, the words 76 pév rorfp. 
p. rieobe are to be regarded as expressing the Lord’s unfeigned trust and con- 
Jidence in the dvvayeba of the disciples ; He feels confident that they will verify 
it by their actions. His words, therefore, are only indirectly tantamount to a 
prediction, and that not exactly of death by martyrdom, which was certainly 
the fate of James, Acts xii., though not of John,’ but of suffering generally 
in the interests of the Messiah’s kingdom (Rom. viii. 17 ; 2 Cor. i. 5). Itis 
probable, however, that the apocryphal story about John swallowing a cup 
Sull of poison,* and that without being anything the worse (Mark xvi. 18), 
as well as the legend about the attempt to scald him to death in boiling oil,*® 
owe their existence and propagation to the present passage. Origen views 
our Lord’s words on this occasion in connection with the banishment of 
John to Patmos, 

Ver. 24. "Hyavaxrycav] Jealousy of the two disciples who were thus aspiring 
to be first. ® 

Ver. 25 ff. Those ambitious desires which prompted the request of the 
sons of Zebedee have likewise a good deal to do with the displeasure of the 
other disciples. Accordingly, Jesus endeavors to check their ambition by 


1See the exposition of Isa. li. 17; Jer. 
xlix. 12; Martyr. Polye. 14. 

2 For €uov eore with infinitive, comp. Plat. 
Legg. ii. p. 664 B: euov av ein Aéyew, ‘it 
would be mine to say.” 

3 The statement of Gregorius Hamartolos 
(quoted by Nolte in the 7%}. theol. Quar- 
tolschr. 1862, p. 466), to the effect that, in his 
Aoy.a, Papias declares that John was put to 
death by the Jews, cannot outweigh the 
testimony of the early church to the fact 
that he died a natural death. For the dis- 


cussion of this point, see Hilgenfeld in his 
Zeitschr. 1866, p. 78 ff.; Overbeck, ibid. 1867, 
p. 68 ff. ; Holtzmann in Schenkel’s Zea. III. 
p. 883; Keim, III. p. 44 f.; Steitz in the 
Stud. u. Krit. 1868, p. 487 ff. 

4See Fabricius, ad Cod. Apocr. I. p. 5763 
Tischendorf, Act. ap. apocr. p. 269. 

® Tertullian, de praescr. 36. 

6 Euthymius Zigabenus: ot Ska tots Svat 
pabyntats ebOovncav, Toy mpwTelwy edbrenevots, 
““ the ten are envious of the two disciples 
aiming at the highest distinctions.” 


306 THE GOSPEL OF MATTHEW. 

insisting on the humble spirit of the servant as the way to true greatness in 
the ranks of His followers. —oi apyovrec trav é6v.] the heathen rulers. — 
xatakvp. | the intensive force of the compound verb serves to convey the idea 
of oppressive rule.’ Similarly with regard to the xatefovc., which occurs 
nowhere else, and which may be rendered : they practise violence toward. — 
avrov| refers in both instances to r. é0vav. —oi weyaror] the magnates.* — ovx 
obta¢ éorev év buiv] it isnot so among you. Observe the present (see critical 
notes) ; there is no such order of things among you. — péyac] great, not 
equivalent to péyicroc, but in the sense of : to occupy a high and distin- 
guished place among you. In the sphere to which you belong, true greatness 
lies in doing service ; that is the principle on which you will act. Hence 
the future Zora ; for, in the event of any one wishing to become great, he 
will aim at it by means of serving ; the latter is the way to the former. — 
xparoc] one of the first in point of rank, a sort of climax to péyac, as deaxovog is 
to dovsoc. The emphasis in the consequent clauses rests on those two predi- 
cates, and hence the emphatic word is placed in each case at the close. 

Ver. 28. "Qorep]*. Observe here the consciousness, which Jesus had from 
the very first, that to sacrifice Himself was His great divine mission.* — dza- 
xovnbjvas| to be waited upon, as grandees are. — kai dovvac] intensive ; adding 
on the highest act, the culminating point in the dvaxoryoar ; but doiva: is made 
choice of, because the wy (the soul, as the principle of the life of the body) 
is conceived of as Abtpov (a ransom) ; for, through the shedding of the blood 
(xxvi. 28 ; Eph. i. 7), it becomes the rif of the redemption, 1 Cor. vi. 20, 
vii. 23. Comp. note on John x. 11. — av7i r0A/6r] avri denotes substitution. 
That which is given as a ransom takes the place (is given instead) of those 
who are to be set free in consideration thereof. The Aitpov® is an avridurpov 
(1 Tim. ii. 6), avrdAdayua (xvi. 26). Whether avr? roAaév should be joined 
to Abtpov, which is the simpler course, or connected with dovva, is a matter 
of perfect indifference,* so far as the meaning of avri is concerned. In any 
case, that meaning is strictly and specifically defined by 2érpov (195), ac- 


1 Comp. Diod. Sic. xiv, 64, and the Sept. 
passim ; see Schleusner ; 1 Pet. v. 3; Acts 
xix: 16: 

2Hom. Od. xviii. 382, comp. meyrorares, 
Mark vi. 21; ‘‘ipsis saepe dominis imperio- 
siores,” “often more imperious than their 
lords themselves,”’ Bengel. 

3“ Summum exemplum,” Bengel. Comp. 
Phil. ii. 5; Rom. xv. 3; Polyc. Phil. 5: os 
eycveto Suakovos TavTmy. 

4 Comp. Dorner, stindlose Vollk. Jesu, p. 
44 ff. 

5 Plat. Legg. xi. p.919 A, ep. p. 293 D, 
Thue. vi. 5. 4. 

® In answer to Hofmann, Schriftbew. II. 1, 
p. 300. 

7 Ritschl, in the Jahrb. f. D. Theol. 1863, p. 
222 ff., defines Avtpov as meaning something 
given by way of equivalent in order ¢o avert 
death ; this, however, is not sufficient, for, 
throughout the Sept. also, in which 52 is 


rendered by Avrpov (Ex. xxi. 30, xxx. 12; 
Num. xxxy. 31 f.; Prov. vi. 35, xiii. 8), pre- 
tium redemtionis is found to be the specific 
meaning given to the word, although the 
connection may sometimes admit ex adjunc- 
to the additional idea of something given 
for the purpose of averting death. The 
Sept. likewise adheres to the same meaning 
in cases where other expressions are ren- 
dered by Avtpov, such as mwa (Lev.. XXv. 
24, 51), O° ID (Num. iii. 51), 79 (Ex. xxi. 
30), VT (isa. xlv. 13). Ritschl interprets 
our present passage as follows: “‘Z am 
come to give away my life to God in sacrifice, 
that I may become the substitute of those who 
could never hope to succeed in finding, either 
Sor themselves or others, any adequate ransom 
asa means of securing their exemption from 
death ; but the substitute only of those who, 
through fuith and self-denying devotion to my 
person, fulfil the condition on which alone the 


CHAP. XX., 29-31. B57 


cording to which av7i can only be understood in the sense of substitution 
in the act of which the ransom is presented as an equivalent to secure the 
deliverance of those on whose behalf it is paid,—a view which is only con- 
firmed by the fact that in other parts of the New Testament this ransom is 
usually spoken of as an expiatory sacrifice, xxvi, 28 ; John i. 29 ; 1 John iv. 
10 ; Rom. iii. 25 ; Isa. liii, 10; 1 Pet. i. 18 f., iii. 18. That which they 
are redeemed from is the eternal azé/sia, in which, as having the wrath of 
x0d abiding upon them (John iii. 86), they would remain imprisoned (John 
im 16 5; Gali mids 5 2 Cor. -v. 215 1 Pet: ii. 243 Col. i) 14,13)£) asin 
a state of hopeless bondage (Heb. ii. 15), unless the guilt of their sins were 
expiated, — roAdav] The vicarious death of Jesus may be described as having 
taken place for all (Rom. v. 18 ; 1 Tim. ii. 6 ; 1 John ii. 2), or for many (so 
also xxvi. 28 ; Heb. ix. 28), according as we regard it as an objective fact 
(that fact being : Jesus has given His life a ransom for a// men), or look at 
it in relation to the subjective appropriation of its results on the part of in- 
dividuals (which happens only in the case of believers). So in the present 
case, where, accordingly, zoAAov is to be understood as meaning all who 
believe now and will believe hereafter (John xvii. 20). 

Ver. 29. Comp. Mark x. 46 ff.; Luke xviii. 35 ff. —Kai éxrop. abtév ard 
‘Iepiyo] The Synoptists make no mention whatever of the visit to Ephraim 
and the journey to Bethany (mentioned in John xi. 54, xii. 1) ; indeed, 
their narrative (Matt. xxi. 1 f.) positively excludes at least the latter of 
these. This divergence, and not a mere want of precision, should be fairly 
acknowledged (comp. note on xxi. 1), and not explained away by means 
of ingenious conjectures (Paulus, Schleiermacher, Neander, comp. also 
Sieffert, who suppose that Jesus may have entered Bethany along with the 
rest of the pilgrims in the evening, and may have left it again next morning 
or the morning after ; see, on the other hand, on John xii. 17 f., note). A 
further discrepancy is to be found in the fact that Luke represents the heal- 
ing as having taken place év 76 éyyifew abrov elc ‘Tepry., and that Mark and 
Luke mention only one blind man, althaugh the first mentioned divergence 
has been turned to account in the way of supporting the hypothesis that 
Matthew has blended together two distinct cases of healing, one of which 
is supposed to have taken place when Jesus was entering the town, the other 
when He was leaving it (Theophylact, Neander, Wieseler, Ebrard, Krafft). 
The difficulty connected with the mention of two men is not removed by a 
supposed reminiscence of ix. 27 ff. (Strauss), nor explained by supposing 
that the blind man of Bethsaida, Mark viii. 22, may have been included 
(Holtzmann, Volkmar); but it proves that, in point of authenticity, 
Matthew’s account compares unfavorably with the characteristic narrative 
of Mark, which bears traces of being the original account of what took place. 
Comp. note on vili. 28 ff. 

Ver. 31 f. "Iva owrfo.} Aim of émetipuyoev abtoic.1— They probably saw 


ransom furnished by me can procure the hoped tas aitév, “ the crowd curbed them through 


for exemption,” p. 238. respect for Jesus on the ground that the 
1 Euthymius Zigabenus says well: éea76- blind men were troublesome to him.” 


fucgev avTous eis TLV TOD “Inaod, ws evoxAovr- Comp. xix. 13. 


358 THE GOSPEL OF MATTHEW. 


that He was just then in the act of conversing on some topic or other. —ré 
Gédete rojow iuiv;| The question is intended to increase their confidence by 
means of the hope which it excites.’ There is no need to supply iva, but 
comp. note on Xili. 28. 

Ver. 33 f. "Iva avoryoow, «.t.4.| answering the above question in terms of 
the object aimed at in the cry, éAéjoov jac, of Which iva avoy., x.7.4. is the 
continuation. — jaro} different from Mark and Luke, who represent Jesus 
as healing merely by the power of His word. — tov duudtwr (see critical notes), 
used for variety, being, as far as the meaning is concerned, the same as 
od0aAwoi.2— avéBr. avt. of o00.| their eyes recovered the power of seeing ; naively 
told. — 7KoA0b6. av76] we cannot tell whether they followed him permanently, 
though this seems probable from Mark x. 46, 


1 Comp. note on John vy. 6. 2 Comp. Xen. Mem. i. 4. 17; Plat. Alc. I. p. 133 B. 


CHAP, XXI: 359 


CHAPTER XXI. 


Ver. 1. mpdc¢ 70 dpoc] Instead of mpéc, Lachm. and Tisch. have eic, following B 
C** 33, codd. of It. Or. (once). Correctly ; rpdc is taken from Mark xi. 1 ; Luke 
xix. 29.— Ver. 2. ropevOyre] Lachm. Tisch. 8: ropeieche, following important 
evidence. But the transcribers happened to be more familiar with ropevecbe (x. 6, 
xxii. 9, xxv. 9, 41).— For arévav7i, Lachm. Tisch. 8 have xatévavti, which, though 
sanctioned by important evidence, is borrowed from Mark and Luke. — aydyeze, 
for which, with Lachm., dyere should be read, is likewise taken from the par- 
allel passages (see, however, on Mark xi. 2). — Ver. 3. With the Received text, 
Lachm. and Tisch. read drocteAci, following B DH M 8, Vulg. It. Copt. Sahid. 
Arm. Or., while Matth. Griesb. Scholz, on the other hand, have adopted «droo- 
TéAket. Important evidence on both sides. The connection seemed to require 
the future, which was accordingly introduced here and in Mark xi. 3, — Ver. 4. 
dAov] is to be deleted, with Lachm. and Tisch. 8, following C* DL Z &, vss. 
Or. Chrys. Hil. Comp. i. 22, xxvi. 56. — Ver. 5. m@Aov] Lachm. Tisch. : ém 
ra@iov, following BLN 8, 1, 124, vss. Correctly ; in the Sept. there is only 
one éxi.— Ver. 6. The evidence of B C D 33 in favor of ovvétagev (Lachm. 
Tisch. 7) is sufficient. Tisch. 8, with the Received text, reads rpocéraéev, the 
more usual form. — Ver. 7. For the first éravw aitov, Lachm. and Tisch. 8 read 
éx’ avtov, following B L Z 8, 69, Or., with which we may class D and codd. of 
It., which have éx’ avrév. The transcriber would be apt mechanically to antic- 
ipate the subsequent émdrw. — érexabicev (Elz. : éxexaGicav) is supported by de- 
cisive evidence (adopted by Matth. Griesb. Fritzsche, Scholz, Lachm, Tisch.), 
so that instead of supposing it to be taken from Mark xi. 7 (comp. John xii. 14), 
we should rather regard the reading of the Received text as derived from Luke 
xix. 35. — Ver. 8. éorpévvv0v] Tisch. 8 : éotpwoav, following only D S* Or. A 
repetition of éovpwoay in the earlier part of the verse. — Ver. 9. mpodyovrec] 
Lachm. Tisch. : rpody. aitév, following B C D L. 8, min. vss. Or. Eus.. This 
a’rov, Which in itself is not indispensable, was still more apt to be omitted in 
consequence of Mark. xi. 9. — Ver. 11. Lachm. (B D 8, Or.) puts 6 zpog. before 
“Tyaove ; so also Tisch. 8. But how current was the use of the phrase, “ Jesus 
of Nazareth !’ — Ver. 12. rod Ooi] deleted by Lachm., following B L &, min. 
vss. and Fathers. It was omitted as superfluous, and from its not being found 
in Mark and Luke, also in consequence of its not occurring elsewhere in the 
New Testament. — Ver. 13. éroujoare] Fritzsche, Lachm. Tisch.: zoveite, follow- 
ing BL &, 124, Copt. Aeth. Or. Eus. Correctly ; éroijoare is from Luke. Comp. 
on Mark xi. 17. — Ver. 19. un«é71] Lachm. and Tisch.: od unxérs, following, it is 
true, only BL; but od would readily be omitted, all the more that Mark xi. 14 
has simply pyxére. — Ver. 23. éA06vte aitG] Lachm. Tisch. 8; éA66vto¢ avrod. 
See on viii. 1. — Ver. 25. ’Iwavvov] Lachm. and Tisch: 76 ’Iwdvvod, which is 
sufficiently attested by B C Z &, Or.; 76 was omitted as superfluous. — rap’ 
éavt.] Lachm. : év éavt., following B L M** Z, min. Cyr. Gloss in accordance 
with xvi. 7, 8. — Ver. 28. wov] upon important evidence, is with Fritzsche, 


360 THE GOSPEL OF MATTHEW. 

Tisch. is to be deleted as an interpolation. — Ver. 30. érépw] So also Griesb. 
Scholz, Tisch. The devrépw (Lachm.) of the Received text is opposed by C* D 
EFGHKUXAILB, min. vss. and Fathers, and, coming as it does after 
mpor@, looks like an exegetical gloss. — Ver. 31. mpaétoc] Lachm.: torepoc. 
Maintained by Rinck and Schweizer! in the Stud. wu. Krit. 1839, p. 944. Comp. 
Ewald also, who, however, suggests torepov, se. wetaueAnieic. Similarly Buttm. 
in the Stud. u. Krit. 1860, p. 343 ff. déorepoc is found in B, while D, vss. (also 
codd, of It. and the Vulg.) and several Fathers read éoyaroc. Consequence of 
the transposition that had taken place in vy. 29, 30 (B, min. vss. and Fathers) : 
6 0& drop. elmev: Eyd, Kup., Kat ovk anqAOev. Kai rpocead. ro étépw eit. wo. ‘O 
dé anoxp. éeixev: Od Gédw, torepov 62, k.7.A. But this transposition was the result 
of the ancient interpretation of the two sons as referring to the Jews and the 
Gentiles. — Ver. 32. od] Lachm. : oidé, following B, min. Syrer 8nd jer, Copt. 
Aeth. It. Vulg. Hilar. The compound negative, the force of which had not 
been observed, would be omitted all the more readily that dé occurs just before. 
—Ver. 33. zc after dyOpwro¢c (in Elz. Matth.) is deleted by Griesb. and more 
recent editors, in accordance with decisive evidence. — Ver. 38. xatacyomer] 
Lachm. and Tisch.: oyouev, following B DL Z 8, min. Or. Cyr. The compound 
form, for sake of greater precision. — Ver. 44. This whole verse is wanting in D, 
33, Cant. Ver. Vere. Corb. 1, 2, Or. Eus. (?) Lucif. Cyr. (?); condemned by Griesb., 
bracketed by Lachm., deleted by Tisch. The external evidence is not sufficient 
to warrant deletion. Had the words been borrowed from Luke xx. 18, they 
would have been inserted after ver. 42, and the first half of the passage would 
have been in closer agreement with Luke (that is to say, the maé¢ would not have 
been left out). The omission, again, might well be due to a mistake on the 
part of the copyist, whose eye might pass at once from avtifc¢ cai to avTov Kai, — 
Ver. 46. 6¢] Lachm. and Tisch: eic, following B L 8, 1, 22, Or. 
ver. 26, xiv. 5. 


oc is from 


Ver. 1.7. Kai 7A60v eic¢ Byboayy| by way of giving’ greater precision to the 
foregoing jyyicav eic ‘Iepoo. They had come towards Bethphage ; that is, as 
the connection shows (ver. 2), they had not actually entered the village, but 
were close upon it, so that it lay right before them ; comp. on John iv. 5. 
Hard by them (‘‘in latere montis Oliveti,” Jerome) was the neighboring 
village of Bethany (ver. 17), about which, however, and its position with 
reference to Bethphage,* nothing more precise can now be said. Conse- 
quently there is no divergence from Mark and Luke, so that it is unnee- 
essary to understand eic, versus, after 7A90v (Fritzsche), which is distinct 
from, and more definite than, yyyicav.— Of Bethphage, *A83 Ma, house of 


Jigs, no trace remains (Robinson, as above). It is not once mentioned in the 


1 Schweizer explains thus : 6 torepos, sc. 
are\6wv (which Buttm. should not have de- 
eclared to be erroneous). The answer, he 
says, is hesitating and reluctant, perhaps 
intentionally ambiguous. But coming after 


tended to be inappropriate (comp. already 
Jerome), though he ultimately decided in 
favor of the view that the words Aé€yovow.. . 
*Ingods, which Or. omits, are spurious. See 
the latter’s Praefat. II. p. v. Tisch., Bleek, 


the question tis é« twv dvo, x.7.A., the simple 
© voTtepos Can Only be taken as equivalent to 
6 SevVtepos, as in Xen. Hell. i. 7.6, al. Lachm. 
was of opinion that the answer was in- 


and others have correctly upheld the read- 
ing of the Received text. 

2 Comp. Mark xi. 1 ff. ; Luke xix. 29 ff. 

3 Robinson, Pal. IL. p. 212. 


CHAP XE Je: 361 


Old Testament, though frequently in the Talmud.’— rére] an important 
juncture.’ To any one travelling from Jericho, the holy city would be in 
full view at Bethphage (not at Bethany). And Jesus makes due arrange- 
ments for the entry ; it isnot something done simply to gratify the enthu- 
siastic wishes of those about Him (Neander, de Wette, Weizsiicker).*® 


Remarx,—The stay of Jesus at Bethany, recorded by John (xii. 1 ff.), does not 
admit of being inserted into the account given by the Synoptists (in answer to 
Ebrard, Wichelh. Komment. tiber d. Leidensgesch. p. 149; Lichtenstein) ; we 
should rather say that these latter expressly forbid the view that the night had 
been passed at Bethany, all the more that they introduce the anointing (Matt. 
xxvi. 6 ff. ; Mark xiv. 3 ff.), and consequently the stay of Jesus at this village 
after the triumphal entry, and that not merely in the order of their narrative, 
but also in the order of events (Matt. xxvi. 2; Mark xiv. 1). This likewise in 
answer to Wieseler, p. 391 f.— The tradition, to the effect that the triumphal 
entry took place on the Sunday (Palmarum), is in no way inconsistent with the 
synoptic narrative itself, and agrees at the same time with John xii. 1, 12, inas- 
much as it would appear from this evangelist that the day on which Jesus 
arrived at Bethany was most probably the 8th of Nisan, which, however, 
according to John’s representation, must have been Saturday (see note on John 
xii. 1). Still, as regards the dates of the passion week, there remains this fun- 
damental divergence, that, according to the Synoptists, the Friday on which 
Jesus died was the 15th, while according to John (see note on John xviii. 28) it 
was the 14th of Nisan; and further, that John xii, 12 represents Jesus as 
having passed the night at Bethany previous to His triumphal entry, while 
according to the synoptical account He appears to have gone at once from 
Jericho to Jerusalem, In any case, the most authentic view of this matter is 
that of John, on whose authority, therefore, must rest the tradition that Sunday 
was the day on which Christ rode into the city. 


Ver. 2 f. Hic tiv kouny, «.7.2.] Bethphage. — eidévc] essentially appropriate 
to the specific character of the instructions : immediately, after you have 
entered. —'The mention of fo animals made by Matthew, though seemingly 
at variance with Mark xi. 2, Luke xix. 30, John xii. 14, represents the 
matter more correctly than the other evangelists, and is neither to be 
explained symbolically (of Judaism and heathenism, Justin Martyr), nor to 
be regarded as a reduplication on the part of Matthew (Ewald, Holtzmann), 
nor to be traced to a misapprehension of the words of the prophet (de 
Wette, Neander, Strauss, Hilgenfeld), who intends VY oy as an epexe- 
getical parallel to iol nes ; for just in the same way are we to understand 
kai ért r@Aov, Ver. 5, so that, according to Matthew as well, Jesus rides upon 
the foal, though accompanied by the mother, a detail which the other evan- 
gelists fail to notice. Moreover, it is simply arbitrary to assign a mythical 
character to the prediction of Jesus on the strength of Gen. xlix. 11 
(Strauss ; on the other hand, Bleek). —ér:] recitative. — damoaréAAec] so far 


} Buxtorf, p. 1691; Hug, Hin. TI. p. 18. indicated),”’ Bengel. 
2“Non prius; vectura mysterii plena,” 3 Comp. Keim, III. p. 85 f. 


“not before; anentrance fullof mystery (is 


362 THE GOSPEL OF MATTHEW. 


from refusing, He sends them away. The present represents as already 
taking place what will immediately and certainly be realized. Comp. Mark 
iv. 29. In eiPéwe dé, but at once, observe Jesus’ marvellous knowledge, not 
merely of the fact that the animals would undoubtedly be found awaiting 
them exactly as He said they would be, but of the further fact that the 
people of the place are so loyal to Him as perfectly to understand the mean- 
of the 6 kipig, «.7.A., and to find in those words sufficient reason for at 
once complying with His request. Comp. xxvi. 18. The idea of a magical 
virtue attaching to the use of the name Jesus (Strauss) is foreign to the text; 
while, on the other hand, we fail to satisfy the requirements of the three 
accounts of this incident by resolving it into a mere case of borrowing 
(Paulus) or requisition (Keim). — The simple account of John does not 
affect the credibility of the synoptic narrative (also in answer to Bleek).’ 

Ver. 4 f. "Iva xAnpw6h] not accidental, but in accordance with the divine 
purpose of fulfilling, etc. This quotation, which is a free rendering, partly 
of the original Hebrew and partly of the Septuagint, combines Isa. 1xii. 11 
(cimate . . . YuHv) and Zech. ix. 9, where the riding of the ideal Messianic king 
upon an ass is simply a representation, not indeed of absolute humility,’ for 
such riding isa sign of zpairyc, but of a peaceful disposition.* He does not 
come upon a war-horse, not dpyata éAabvwv d¢ ob Aouroi Bactdeic, ‘* driving 
chariots, as the rest of kings do,” Chrysostom. The incident in which Jesus 
then realized the recognized fulfilment of the prophecy (Hengstenberg, 
Ewald, Keim) would suggest the strained interpretation of the figure, and 
quite properly, inasmuch as Christ’s riding into the city revealed the typical 
nature of the formin which the prophet embodied his prediction.* For the 
prophetic expression daughter of Zion (the locality of the town regarded as 
its mother), see Knobel’s note on Isa. i. 8.°— coi] Dative of ethical refer- 
ence, common likewise in classical Greek along with épyec#ar. — Kai éxi rHAov] 
See note on ver. 2. «ai is eperegetical. —vidv brofvy.] MIN8-}3.° 

Ver. 7. They spread their outer garments upon both animals, being uncer- 
tain which of them Jesus intended to mount. —The (second) éxdvw aitov must 
necessarily be referred, with Theophylact, Euthymius Zigabenus, Castalio, 
Beza, Homberg, Fritzsche, Winer, p. 165 [E. T. 219], to the garments, in 
which case it is clear from ver. 5 that Jesus sat upon the foal. Were we to 
refer airév to the animals, the result would be the absurd idea (which Strauss, 
B. Bauer, Volkmar make use of against Matthew) that Jesus mounted both 
of them at once, not one after the other (Fritzsche, Fleck), seeing that 
k. érexdOicev éx. avtov denotes the instantaneous, finished act which followed 
the spreading of the garments. To suppose (Ebrard, Olshausen), by way 
of justifying the reference to the animals, that we have here a loose form of 
speech, corresponding to the German phrase : he leaps from the horses, and 


1 See note on John xii. 14 f. 6 For trogvyiov, beast of burden, a term 

2 Hengstenberg, Christol. III. p. 360 f. more frequently used in the Septuagint to 

3 Comp. Ewald, Propheten, I. p. 256, ed. 2. designate the ass, comp. Herod. ix. 24, 39, 41; 

4 Diisterdieck, de rei propheticae natura Xen. Anaod. i. 3.13; Lucian, Cynic. x. ; Polyb. 
ethica, 1852, p. 78 f. lii. 51. 4; 3 Esdr. y. 43; 2 Pet. ii. 16. 

® Comp. Lam. i. 6. 


CHAP: <xr.,' 8, 9: 368 


such like, is out of the question, for the simple reason that no such oiAAnyue 
can be assumed in the case of ver. 5, all the less so that, from this verse, it 
would appear that it was the dam on which Jesus rode, with the foal walk- 
ing by her side. 

Ver. 8. Manifestations of respect, such as kings were usually greeted with 
on entering cities, 2 Kings ix. 18.1— 6 risiatoc dydoc| the most of the people, 
the greatest part of the multitude.* — éavrav] states what the multitude did 
with their own garments, after the disciples had spread theirs upon the two 
beasts. 

Ver. 9 ff. ‘Qcavvd] 82 NWI, Ps. exviii. 25, bestow blessing /—addressed 
to God. The dative is due to the meaning of the verb (opitulare) contained 
in dcavvd. —doavra év roic dwicr.] Grant blessing in the highest places (Luke 
ii. 14), @.e., in the highest heaven (Eph. iv. 10), where Thy throne is fixed, and 
from which let it descend upon the Messiah. The interpretation of 
Fritzsche, Olshausen : let blessing be proclaimed (by the angels) in heaven ! 
is far-fetched. No less so is that of de Wette, Bleek : let Hosanna be con- 
Jirmed in heaven, let it be ratified by God! Nor is év r. %y. equivalent to 6 
ovr. by. (grant blessing, O Thou who art in heaven), as Beza, Vatablus, 
Calovius, Bengcl, Kuinoel, are disposed to think. — év évdu. kvpiov] i.e., as 
sent by God to be His representative, John v. 48. —Speaking generally, the 
exclamation may be described as an outburst of enthusiasm expressing itself, 
in a free and impromptu manner, in language borrowed from the hymn for 
the feast of Tabernacles, Ps. exviii. (Succoth iv. 5). — éceic6y| was thrown 
into a state of commotion,* on account of the sensation created by this Messi- 
anic entry into the city. The excitement was contagious. —6 rpo@frnc] the 
well-known prophet. The crowds that accompanied Him had, in most explicit 
terms, designated Him the Messiah ; but the less interested people of the 
the city wished above all to ascertain His name and rank. Hence the full 
reply, "Iyoovc . . . Tadcd., in which the 6 dmé-Nalap. +r. Tadd. doubtless 
betrays somewhat of the Galilean consciousness of the multitude, inasmuch as 
it was for most part composed of Galileans. 





Remarx.—The triumphal entry of Jesus is not a final attempt to establish the 
Messianic kingdom in a political sense ( Wolfenb. Fragm.), such a kingdom hav- 
ing been entirely foreign to His purpose and His function. It is rather to be 
regarded as His last public and solemn appearance as the Messiah, —an appear- 
ance which, coming as it did immediately before His passion, was on the one 
hand a matter of deep personal interest because of the necessary bearing it was 
felt to have upon the mission of His life ; while, if taken in connection with 
what happened so soon after, it was calculated, on the other hand, to destroy 
all expectations of a merely political kind. The time was now come when Jesus 
felt that, just because He was the Messiah, it behoved Him to do something— 
and for this he appropriates the prophet’s symbol of the Prince of Peace—by 
way of contrast to His practice hitherto of forbidding the publication of His 


1 Wetstein’s note on this passage ; Rob- Xen. Anabd. iii. 2. 36. 
inson, II. p. 383. 3 Pind. Pyth. iv. 484; Soph. Ant. 163. 
2 Comp. Plat. Rep. 'p. 397 D; Thuc. vii. 78; 


364 THE GOSPEL OF MATTHEW. 


Messiahship. This step, which, from the fact of the crisis being so near, might 
now be taken without risk, He had postponed till the eve of His death, —a cir- 
cumstance of the utmost significance as regarded the sense in which His Mes- 
siahship was to be understood. This incident, too, was one of the things for 
which His hour had not previously come (John vi. 15). Comp. note on John 
vii. 5 f. Strauss asserts that there is here the possibility at least of a mythical 
story, though his objections are far from being to the point. See, on the other 
hand, Ebrard and Bleek. According to Wittichen, Jahrb. f. D. Theol. 1862, p. 
365, Jesus did not intend this incident to be regarded in any other light than 
as an ordinary festival procession, but the multitude, without consulting Him, 
turned it into an occasion for a Messianic demonstration. This is not in keep- 
ing with the unusual preparations mentioned in ver. 2 ; comp. ver. 7. 


Ver. 12. Different from Mark xi. 11, 15, where the narrative is more pre- 
cise ; Comp. Weiss’ note on Mark. —In the court of the Gentiles were the 
tabernae, YIN, where animals, incense, oil, wine, and other requisites for 
sacrifice were exposed for sale.'— The money-changers? exchanged on com- 
mission * ordinary money for the two drachmae pieces which were used in 
paying the temple tribute (see note on xvii. 24). — This cleansing of the 
temple is, with Chrysostom, Paulus, Kuinoel, Tholuck, Olshausen, Kern, 
Ebrard, Baumgarten-Crusius, Schleiermacher, Hengstenberg, Wieseler, to be 
regarded as the second that took place, the first being that recorded in 
John ii. 13 ff., and which occurred on the occasion of the first visit to Jeru- 
salem. The abuse having been repeated, there is no reason why Jesus should 
not have repeated this purifying process, and that (in answer to Hofmann, 
Luthardt, Hengstenberg) without any essential difference . The absence, in 
the synoptical account, of any allusion to a previous occasion, is sufficiently 
explicable from the length of time that intervened, and from the fact that 
the Synoptists take no notice generally of what took place during the earlier 
visit to Judea. The similarity of the accompanying circumstances may be ac- 
counted for from the similarity of the éneidents themselves ; whereas the sup- 
position that the cleansing took place only on one occasion would necessarily 
involve a chronological derangement extending to almost the whole period 
of Christ’s ministry,—a derangement which can neither be fairly imputed to 
the synoptical narrative nor even conceived of as far as John is concerned, 
whose testimony is that of an eye-witness. This is not ‘‘ wishy-washy 
criticism” (Keim), but it is based upon the authenticity of the fourth Gospel, 
as well as upon the weighty and unanimous testimony of the synoptical 
writers, to sacrifice whose authority for the sake of John would be both one- 
sided and violent. This, however, is what Wetstein, Liicke, Neander, 
de Wette, Bleek, Ewald, Weizsicker have done. Others again, have 
rejected the fourth evangelist’s account, so far as its chronology is concerned, 
in favor of that of the Synoptists (Ziegler, Theile, Strauss, Baur, Weisse, 
Hilgenfeld, Schenkel, Keim).* 

Ver. 13. Free combination of Isa. lvi. 7 and Jer. vii. 11, and taken from 





1 Lightfoot on this passage. 4 Comp., further, the remarks under John 
2 koAAvB., see Phrynichus, p. 440. Lilie 
8 1930)p, Maimonides, Shekal. 3. 


CHAP. XXI., 14. 365 


the Sept. — xAnAijo.] how sacred the purpose for which it was intended, but 
ye, etc. — roeire (see critical notes) censures this desecration of the temple as 
a thing in which they are still persisting. — orjAavov Ayotov] The strong lan- 
guage of the prophet (otherwise in John) was in keeping with the emotion 
that was awakened in Jesus. The use of such language is sufficiently ae- 
counted for by the fact that avarice had taken up its abode in those sacred 
precincts to carry on its huckstering and money-changing : 76 yap guAoKepde¢ 
Anorpixdov 7a0o¢ éort, ‘‘ the love of gain is a robber’s passion,” Theophylact.’ 
—In vv. .12, 18, Jesus acts with higher authority than that of a mere zealot 
(Num. xxv. 11) : He addresses Himself to the purifying of the temple and 
its worship with such a reforming energy as, according to Mal. iii. 1-3, 
befitted the Messiah.? And the acquiescence of the astonished multitude is 
all the more intelligible on the occasion of this cleansing, that the indignant 
reformer had just celebrated His triumphal march into the city in the char- 
acter of Messiah. But even on the jirst occasion, John ii., their acquies- 
cence is sufficiently explicable from the sudden and decided nature of the 
proceeding, taken in connection with the spiritually-imposing character of 
the Lord’s person and bearing (‘‘ divinitatis majestas lucebat in facie,” ‘‘ the 
majesty of divinity was shining forth in his countenance,” Jerome), so that 
it is quite needless to resort to the hypothesis of a miracle (Origen, 
Jerome). 

Ver. 14 ff. The insertion of vv. 14-16 from the apostolic tradition is pecul- 
iar to Matthew. — 7a @avydcia] the only instance of this usage in the New 
Testament, though very common in classical Greek and the Sépt.: the won- 
derful things, viz., the cleansing of the temple and the miraculous cures. 
This combination has suggested the use of the more comprehensive term. — 
Ver. 16. axotvecc, x.t.A.] in a tone of rebuke, implying that He was the occa- 
sion of such impropriety, and was tolerating it. — 67] recitative. The reply 
of Jesus, so profoundly conversant with the true sense of Scripture, is as 
much as to say that this shouting of the children is altogether befitting, as 
being the praise which, according to Ps. viii. 3, God has perfected. —vnziov x. 
@n2afévtov] In explaining the words of the psalm, there is no need to have 
recourse to the fact that children usually received suck for two and three 
years (Grimm’s note on 2 Mace. vii. 27), nor even to the idea of the children 
being transformed into adu/t instruments in effecting the triumph of God’s 
cause,* but only to bearin mind that, as a genuine poet, the psalmist seemed 
to hear, in the noise and prattle of the babes and sucklings, a celebration of their 
Maker’s praise. But, inasmuch as those children who shouted in the temple 
were not vAzvor (7.e., in connection with @7/Aa¢. infantes, Isa. xi. 8 ; 1 Cor. iil. 
1), the scriptural warrant by which Jesus here justifies their hosannas may 
be said to be based upon an inference a minore ad majus. That is to say, 


1 Differently Fritzsche : ‘* Vos undequaque into a cave,’’—where, however, due promi- 


pecuniam, animalia hue congerere susti- nence is not given to the distinctive point 
netis, ut latrones praedam comportant in of comparison, viz. the robbery. 
speluncam,” ‘* You (get) money from every 2Comp. Bertholdt, Christol. p. 163; Ull- 


quarter, you take upon yourselves to gather mann, Stindl. p. 177. 
hither animals, as robbers carry their booty 3 Hofmann, Weiss. u. £rf. Il. p. 118. 


366 THE GOSPEL OF MATTHEW. 


if, according to Ps. viii. 3, God had already ordained praise from the mouths 
of sucklings, how much more has He done so from the mouths of those little 
ones who now shouted hosanna! The former, though unable to speak, and 
still at the mother’s breast, are found praising God ; how much more the 
latter, with their hosanna cries! These last are shouted in honor of the 
Messiah, who, however, is God’s Son and Representative, so that in His dé&a 
God is glorified (John xiii. 81, xiv. 18; Phil. ii. 11), nay, God glorifies Him- 
self (John xii. 28).—k. nvAicOy éxei] Consequently He did not pass the night 
in the open air (in answer to Grotius), for neither in classical Greek do we 
always find aiAifecAa: used in the sense of bivowacking.’ Comp. Tob. iv. 14, 
vi. 10, ix. 5 ; Judg. xix. 9 f..—At present Bethapy is only a miserable village, 
known by the Arabic name of ¢e/-Aziriyeh (from el-Azir, i.e., Lazarus). For 
the name, see note on John i. 28. 

Ver. 19. Comp. Mark xi. 19 ff. Méiav]*—ézi ric éd0v] The tree, which 
was by the side of the public road (not on private property), stood above the 
road, either projecting over it merely, or occupying an eminence close to it, 
or the road itself may have been in aravine. It was a favorite practice to 
plant fig-trees by the roadside, because it was thought that the dust, by 
absorbing the exuding sap, was conducive to the better growth of the fruit, 
Plin. W. H. xv. 19. — 720ev éx’ aithv] not: conscendit arborem (Fritzsche), 
but : He went up to it. From seeing the tree in foliage, Jesus expected, of 
course (for it was well known that the fig-tree put forth its fruit before com- 
ing into leaf), to find fruit upon it as well, namely, the early boccére, which, 
as a rule, did not ripen till June, and not the harvest-figs, kermuse, that had 
been on the tree all winter, and the existence of which He could not infer 
from seeing Jeaves.* On the disappointed expectation of Jesus, Bengel 
observes : ‘‘maxima humanitatis et deitatis indicia uno tempore edere soli- 
tus est,” ‘‘He was wont to unite together the greatest proofs of both man- 
hood and divinity.” It is a perversion of the text to say, with Chrysostom, 
Euthymius Zigabenus, that He did not expect to find fruit upon the tree, but 
went up to it merely for the purpose of working the miracle. Moreover, 
the hunger is alleged to have been only a cynuarifecfa, ‘‘ making an appear- 
ance” (Euthymius Zigabenus), or an eswries sponte excitata (Cornelius a 
Tapide). The account of the withering of the tree, contained in Mark xi. 
12 ff., 19 f., is more precise and more original (in answer to Késtlin, Hilgen- 
feld, Keim). Matthew abridges. 

Ver. 21 f. Instead of telling the disciples, in reply to their question, by 
what means He (in the exercise of His divine power) caused the tree to 
wither, He informs them how they too might perform similar and even 
greater wonders (John xiv. 12), namely, through an unwavering faith in 
Him (xvii. 20), a faith which would likewise secure a favorable answer to 
all their prayers. The participation in the life of Christ, implied in the 
rioric, would make them partakers of the divine power of which He was the 


1 Apollonid. 14; Diod. Sic. xiii, 6. 309 ff.; Sepp, Jerus. u. ad. heil. Land. I. p. 
2On Bethany, some 15 stadia from Je- 583 ff. 
rusalem (John xi. 18), see Tobler, Topogr. 3 **Unam illo loco,” Bengel. 


v. Jerus. Il. p. 482 ff.; Robinson, Pad. II. p. 4 Comp. Tobler, Denkodl. aus Jerus. p. 101 ff. 


- 


CHAP) (XXI., 20; 367 


organ, would be a guarantee that their prayers would always be in harmony 
with the will of God, and so would prevent the promise from being in any 
way abused. — The affair of the jig-tree (+6 tHe cv7yjc, comp. vill. 33) should 
neither be explained on natural grounds (Paulus says : Jesus saw that the 
tree was on the point of dying, and that He intimated this ‘‘in the popular 
phraseology” ! Comp. even Neander, Baumgarten-Crusius, Bleek), nor, 
regarded as a mythical picture suggested by the parable in Luke xiii. 6 ff. 
(Strauss, de Wette, Weisse, Hase, Keim), but as the miraculous result of an 
exercise of His will on the part of Jesus,—such a result as is alone in keeping 
with the conception of Christ presented in the Gospel narrative. But the puwr- 
pose of the miracle cannot have been to punish an inanimate object, nor, one 
should think, merely to make a display of miraculous power (Fritzsche, Ull- 
mann), but fo represent in a prophetic, symbolical, visible form the punishment 
which follows moral barrenness (Luke xiii. 6 ff.),—such a punishment as 
was about to overtake the Jews in particular, and the approach of which 
Jesus was presently to announce with solemn earnestness on the eve of His 
own death (vv. 28-44, xxii. 1-14, xxiil., xxiv. xxv.). It is true He does not 
make any express declaration of this nature, nor had He previously led the 
disciples to expect such (Sieffert); but this objection is met partly by the 
fact that the toc of the disciples’ question, ver. 20, did not require Him to 
do so, and partly by the whole of the subsequent denunciations, which form 
an eloquent commentary on the silent withering of the fig-tree. — aitjoyre év 
rh Tpocevyij] Comp. note on Col. 1. 9: what ye will have desired in your 
prayer. — xiotebuvtec] Condition of the Ajpecbe. He who prays in faith, 
prays in the name of Jesus, John xiv. 13. 

Ver. 23. Comp. Mark xi. 27 ff.; Luke xx. 1 ff. — Avdéoxovt:] while He was 
engaged in teaching. — év zo/g éfovcia] in virtue of what kind of authority." 
The second question is intended to apply to Him who has given the author- 
ity ; the first is general, and has reference to the natwre of the authority 
(whether it be divine or human). — raira] these things, cannot point merely 
to the cleansing of the temple (Theophylact, Euthymius Zigabenus), which is 
too remote for such special reference. As little can the teaching by itself be 
intended (Grotius, Bengel), that being a matter in connection with the min- 
istry of Jesus about which the Sanhedrim was comparatively unconcerned, 
and for which He did not need a higher authority. We should rather say 
that, in their raira, the questioners mean to include all that up till that mo- 
ment Jesus had done and was still doing in Jerusalem, and therefore refer to 
the triumphal entry, the cleansing of the temple, the miraculous healing 
and the teaching in the temple, all which, taken together, seemed to betoken 
the Messianic pretender. The members of the Sanhedrim hoped either to 
hear Him acknowledge that the éovoia was divine, or presumptuously assert 
that it was self-derived, so that in either case they might have something on 
which to found judicial proceedings against Him. They seem to have been 
a provisional deputation of the Sanhedrim appointed to discover a pretext 
for excommunicating Him. Comp. John i, 19. 





1 Comp. Acts iy. 7. 2 Comp. de Wette, Bleek, Weizsicker, p. 532; Keim, III. p. 112. 


368 THE GOSPEL OF MATTHEW. 


Ver. 24 f. Jesus prudently frustrates their design by proposing in reply a 
puzzling question, which, in the circumstances, they did not know how to 
answer. — Adyov éva] @ single word, a single question ; not more. The subject 
of the question itself is admirably chosen, seeing that the work of reform 
in which Jesus was engaged had a necessary connection with that of John ; 
both would stand and fall together. — xd0ev qv] whence did it proceed ? The 
following alternative is explanatory : was it from God, who had commis- 
sioned John, or,from men, so that he baptized simply on his own authority 
or that of his fellow-mortals ? The latter was out of the question, if John 
was a prophet (ver. 26). Comp., further, Acts v. 89. — diedoy. ap’ éavroic] 
they deliberated by themselves, privately xaz’ idiar, t.e., with each other, during a 
brief pause for private consultation, before giving their decision, which was 
intimated in the subsequent droxpiAévrec TO "Incov. dradoyifecbac in this in- 
stance also denotes reflection combined ,with mutual consultation.’ — 
éxiotevoare abt@] Aéyovte TOAAG Kal weya?a repi éuov, Euthymius Zigabenus. 

Ver. 26 f. boBotueGa tov 6yA0v] Those words are preceded by an aposiope- 
sis, the import of which, however (Luke xx. 6), is indicated by the words 
themselves.—The language of embarrassment : ‘‘ But suppose we should say : 
From men; we are afraid of the people,” etc. Comp. note on Acts xxiii. 9. 
— ravrec yap, x.T.A.] See on xiv. 5. —xai avtéc| He also on His part ; for as 
they with their wretched ov« oidayev left the question of Jesus unanswered, so 
now in like manner He with His decided and humbling oidé éyé (neither do I) 
refuses to answer theirs. 

Ver. 28-32. Peculiar to Matthew, and doubtless taken from the collection 
of the sayings of the Lord.—Jesus now assumes the offensive in order to con- 
vince His adversaries of their own baseness. —réxva and réxvov suggest the 
father’s love. —Ver. 80. éyé] is to be taken elliptically, and that with due re- 
gard at the same time to its emphatic character, in virtue of which it forms 
a contrast to the negative answer of the other son : J, sir, will go and work 

-in the vineyard this very day. The xipe expresses the hypocritical submis- 
sion of the man. — The publicans and harlots are represented by the jirst men- 
tioned son ; for previous to the days of John they refused to obey the divine 
call (in answer to the command to serve Him, which God addressed to them 
through the law and the prophets, they practically said : ov #é2), but when 
John appeared they accorded him the faith of their hearts, so that, in con- 
formity with his preaching, they were now amending their ways, and 
devoting themselves to the service of God. The members of the Sanhedrim 
are represented by the second son ; for, while pretending to yield obedience 
to the law of God revealed in the Scriptures (by the submissive airs which 
they assumed, they practically uttered the insincere éya, xipie), they in real- 
ity disregarded it, and, unlike the publicans and the harlots, they would 
not allow themselves to be influenced by the movement that followed the 
preaching of the Baptist, so that neither the efforts of John nor the exam- 
ple of the publicans and harlots had any effect upon them in the way of pro- 
ducing conversion, To understand by the two sons the Gentiles and the 


1 Comp. xvi. 7; Mark viii. 16; Luke xx. 14. 


CHAP, XXIV, 33. 369 


Jews, is entirely against the context. — rpodyovow iuac] as though the future 
entering into the Messianic kingdom were now taking place. The going be- 
Sore, however, does not necessarily imply that others are following. Comp. 
xviii. 14. —év 666 dixaocbyyc] in the way of righteousness, i.e., as one whose 
walk and conversation are characterized by moral integrity.  év duéurrw Biw 
(Theophylact), iva kai afcériorog gavy (Euthymius Zigabenus).!| The preaching 
of righteousness (de Wette, Bleek, Keim) would have been expressed by 
some such terms as dddv dixatoc. diddoxwv (XXil. 16). — iddvrec] the fact, name- 
ly, that the publicans and harlots believed Him. — oidé perewed. ior.| did not 
even feel penitent afterwards (ver. 29), far less did you get the length of actual 
conversion. The example of those others produced so little impression upon 
you. The emphasis is not on torep., but on perex.— Tod miotevoa] Object 
of wereu. vor., so as to believe Him. 

Ver. 33 ff.* Jesus, in ver. 28 ff., having shown his adversaries how base they 
are, NOW proceeds to do this yet more circumstantially in another parable 
(founded, no doubt, upon Isa. v. 1 ff.), in which, with a lofty and solemn 
earnestness, He lays bare to them the full measure of their sin against God 
(even to the killing of His Son), and announces to them the punishment that 
awaits them. — dpvgev év ait Anvév| dug a wine-vat init.* This was a trough 
dug in the earth for the purpose of receiving the juice of the grape as it 
flowed down from the press through an aperture covered with a grating.* — 
xtpyov| a tower, for watching the vineyard. Such tower-shaped structures 
were then, and are still, in common use for this purpose.* — é¢édoro] he let it 
out,° namely, to be cultivated. Seeing that the proprietor himself collects the 
produce (vv. 34, 41), we must assume that the vineyard was let for a money 
rent, and not, as is generally supposed, for a share of the fruit. For 
nothing is said in this passage about payment in kind to the proprietor, in- 
cluding only part of the produce.’ — rovc kaprove avrov| airod is often taken 
as referring to the vineyard ; but without reason, for there is nothing to 
prevent its being referred to the subject last mentioned. It was his own 
Jruit that the master wished to have brought to him. The fruit of the 
vineyard, and the whole of it too, belongs to him. — éib0B6Ancav| they stoned 
him,® forms a climaz to aréxr., aS being a ‘‘ species atrox” (Bengel) of this 
latter. — évtparyo.| a reasonable expectation. — eizov év éavrtoic| they said one 
to another. — kai cyauev tHv KAnpov. avtov] and let us obtain possession of his in- 
heritance, namely, the vineyard to which he is the heir. In these words they 
state not the result of the murder (as in Mark), but what step they propose to 
take next. After the death of the son, who is therefore to be regarded as an 
only one, they intend to lay claim to the property. — é&éSadov x. aréxr.| Aif- 
ferently in Mark xii. 8, hence also the transposition in D, codd. of It. 
This passage contains no allusion to the previous excommunication (Grotius), 


1 Comp. 2 Pet. ii. 21, ii. 2 ; Prov. viii. 20, xii. 5 Tobler, Denkbdl. p. 113. 
28, xvii. 23. 6 Pollux. i. 75; Herod. i. 68; Plat. Parm. 
2 Comp. Mark xii. 1 ff.; Luke xx. 9 ff. p. 127 A; Dem. 268, 9. 
3 Comp. Xen. Oec. xix. 2; omdcov Baéos 7 Otherwise in Mark xii. 2; Luke xx. 10; 
oputrew det 70 dutov, “how great depthitis | comp. Weiss’ note on Mark. 
necessary to dig (for planting) the tree.” 8 xxiii. 87 ; John viii.5; Acts vii. 58 f., xiv. 


4See Winer, Zealw. I. p. 653 f. 5; Heb. xii. 20. 


370 THE GOSPEL OF MATTHEW. 


or to the crucifixion of Christ because it took place outside of Jerusalem 
(comp. Heb. xiii. 12 f. ; so Chrysostom, Theophylact, Euthymius Zigabe- 
nus, Olshausen), but simply describes the scene in which the son on his ar- 
rival is thrust out of the vineyard and murdered.—The parable illustrates the 
hostile treatment experienced time after time by God’s prophets (the dovAov) 
at the hands of the leaders (the husbandmen) of the Jewish theocracy (the 
vineyard), —an institution expressly designed for the production of moral 
fruit,—and also shows how their self-seeking and love of power would lead 
them to put to death even Jesus, the Son, the last and greatest of the mes- 
sengers from God.’ Chrysostom, Theophylact, Euthymius Zigabenus, like- 
wise find a meaning in the hedge (the law), the wine-vat (the altar), and the 
tower (the temple). So also Bengel; who sees in aredjugoev an allusion to 
the ‘‘ tempus divinae taciturnitatis,” ‘‘ time of divine silence,” while Origen 
takes it as referring to the time when God ceased to manifest Himself in a 
visible shape. 

Ver. 40 f. According to Mark and Luke, it is Jesws who replies. But 
how appropriate and how striking (comp. ver. 31) that the adversaries 
themselves are forced to pronounce their own condemnation (in answer to 
Schneckenburger, de Wette, Bleek) !— kaxode kaxdc aroAéoe: ait.] as despi- 
cable creatures (scoundrels), He will miserably destroy them. The collocation 
Kakovc Kaxac Serves to indicate in an emphatic manner the correspondence 
between the conduct in question and its punishment.? If we are to apply 
the parable in accordance with the order of thougbt, and, therefore, in con- 
formity with the meaning intended by Jesus Himself, we cannot understand 
the coming of the xépioc and the execution of the punishment as denoting 
the second advent and the last judgment ; for, apart from the fact that it is 
God and not Christ that is represented by the xipioc, the words oirivec ar0d6- 
covolv, K.T.A., Would point to the period subsequent to the advent and the 
judgment,—a reference not in keeping with the sense of the passage. The 
true reference is to the destruction of Jerusalem, the shape in which the di- 
vine judgment is to overtake the then guardians of the theocracy, where- 
upon this latter would be entrusted to the care of other guides (i.e., the 
leaders of the Christian church as representing the true “Icpa7A tov Geov), 
who as such will be called upon to undertake the duties and responsibilities 
of their unfaithful predecessors.* Such are the things which those hostile 
questioners ‘‘dxovteg mpoontetbovar,” ‘involuntarily prophesy” (Euthymius 
Zigabenus). — év roi¢ Karpoic aitHv] avteév refers to the yewpyoi : at the terms 
prescribed to them for doing so. 

Ver. 42. The enemies of Jesus have answered correctly, but they are not 
aware that they have thus pronounced their own condemnation, since those 
who thrust out the Son that was sent to them are no other than themselves. 
To bring this fully home to them (ver. 45), is the purpose of the concluding 


1 Comp. Acts vii. 51 f. evilly ;"’ and, in general, Lobeck, ad Soph. 
2 See Wetstein’s note ; Fritzsche, Diss. in Aj. 866; Elmsl. ad Hur. Med. 787. 
2 Cor. ii. p. 147 f.; Lobeck, Paralip. p. 58. 3 Comp. xxii. 7; John vii. 84; Eph. iv. 
Comp. Eur. Cycl. 270: Kkax@s obto. Kakot amo- 11 f. 


Aowv6’, “‘let these evil children perish 


CHAP, XXI., 43. d71 


words added by our Lord. The quotation is from the Septuagint version 
of Ps. exviil. 22 f., which was composed after the captivity, and in which 
the stone, according to the historical sense of the psalm, represents the 
people of Israel, who, though rejected by the Gentiles, were chosen by God 
to form the foundation-stone of His house (the theocracy) ; while, accord- 
ing to the typical reference of the passage (which the Rabbinical teachers 
also recognized, see Schoettgen), it denotes the ideal head of the theocracy, 
viz. the Messiah. — 2ibov bv] a stone which, attraction of very frequent occur- 
rence, — azedoxiv.] as not fit for being used in the building. —oiroc] this, 
and no other. — kedadjv ywvriac] 13D WS], head of the corner, i.e., corner-stone,} 
is the metaphorical designation of Him on whom the stability and develop- 
ment of the theocracy depend, without whom it would fall to pieces, and in 
this respect He resembles that stone in a building which is indispensably 
necessary to the support and durability of the whole structure. The antitype 
here referred to is not the Gentiles (Fritzsche), but, as must be inferred from 
the connection of our passage with what is said about the Son being thrust 
out and put to death, from the further statement in ver. 44, and from the 
common usage throughout the New Testament,’ the Messiah. — éyévero airy] 
did he become so (viz., the corner-stone, xegaAy ywviac). Here the feminine is 
not a Hebraism for the neuter (as little is it so in 1 Sam. iv. 7; Ps. xxvii. 
4), as Buttmann, Newt. Gr. p. 108 [E. T. 123], would have us suppose, but 
strictly grammatical, inasmuch as it refers to xed. yor. ; and accordingly we 
find that in the Septuagint also NN is rendered according to its contextual 
reference. To refer to ywvriag merely (Wetstein) is inadmissible, for this 
reason, that, in what precedes, cedady yor. was the prominent idea. — «ai 
ort Oavyaory, x.7.2.. | viz., this xedary yov. ‘‘ Our eyes,” as referring to believers. 

Ver. 43. Ava tovro]| therefore, because, according to the psalm just quoted, 
the rejected stone is destined to become the corner-stone. What is contained 
in the following announcement is the necessary consequence of the inversion 
of the order of things just referred to. The Aéyw iviv, however, like the ag’ 
iuoav below, implies the obvious intermediate thought : ‘for it is you who 
reject this corner-stone.” — dp0jcera ad’ buav] for they, along with the whole 
"Topa7jA kata capa represented by them, were by natural right the owners of 
the approaching Messianic kingdom, its theocratic heirs ; comp. xiii. 838. — 
éOver. Tolovvrt, k.T.A.] Jesus is not here referring to the Gentiles, as, since 
Eusebius’ time, many, and in particular Schenkel, Hilgenfeld, Keim, 
Volkmar, have supposed, but, as the use of the singular already plainly in- 
dicates, to the whole of the future subjects of the kingdom of the Messiah, 
conceived of as one people, which will therefore consist of Jews and Gentiles, 
that new Messianic people of God, which is to constitute the body politic in 
the kingdom that is about to be established, 1 Pet. ii. 9. The fruits of the 
Messiah’s kingdom are those fruits which must be produced as the condition 
of admission (v. 3 ff., xiii. 8). Hence, likewise, the use of the present 
moovvte ; for Jesus regards the future subjects of the kingdom as already 


1JIn Hesychius we find xedadirys in the p. 700. 
sense of corner-stone ; see Lobeck, ad Phryn. 2 Acts iv. 11; Eph. ii. 20; 1 Pet. ii 7. 


372 THE GOSPEL OF MATTHEW. 


anticipating its establishment by producing its fruits. The metaphor is to be 
regarded as an echo of the parable of the vineyard. The fruits themselves 
are identical with those mentioned in Eph. v. 9 ; Gal. v. 22 ; Rom. vi. 22. 

Ver. 44. After having indicated the future punishment in the merely neg- 
ative form of ap6joera:, k.t.2., Jesus now proceeds to announce it in positive 
terms, by means of parallelism in which, without dropping the metaphor of 
the stone, the person in question is first the subject and then the object. A 
solemn exhausting of the whole subject of the coming doom. And whosoever 
will have fallen upon this stone (whosoever by rejecting the Messiah shall have 
incurred the judgment consequent thereon) shall be broken (by his fall) ; 
but on whomsoever it shall fall (whomsoever the Messiah, as an avenger, shall 
have overtaken), it shall winnow him, i.e., throw him off like the chaff from 
the winnowing-fan. cvréAacba (to be crushed) and Aikuaca, which form a 
climax, are intended to portray the execution of the Messianic judgments. 
Aukuaw is not equivalent to conterere, comminuere, the meaning usually as- 
signed to it in accordance with the Vulgate, but is rather to be rendered by 
to winnow, ventilare.’ See likewise Job xxvii. 21, where the Sept. employs 
this jigurative term for the purpose of rendering the idea of driving away as 
before a storm (TYW).2— Observe the change which the figure undergoes in 
the second division of the verse. The stone that previously appeared in the 
character of the corner-stone, lying at rest, and on which, as on a stone of 
stumbling (Isa. viii. 14 f.), some one falls, is now conceived of as rolling 
down with crushing force upon the man ; the latter having reference to the 
whole of such coming (ver. 40) in judgment down to the second advent ; 
the former expressing the same thought in a passive form, keitac ele rTOow 
(Luke ii. 34). 

Ver. 45 f. It was the hint contained in this concluding remark that led 
Jesus at once to follow up what had been already said with another para- 
bolic address directed against His enemies. — oi apyuepeic¢ x. of bapic. | identi- 
cal with the of apy. x. oi tpeoBitepor of ver. 23, so that, in the present instance, 
the latter are designated by the name of the party to which they belonged. 
—yvwoav] what had now become clear to them from what was said, vv. 42-44. 
The confident manner in which they express themselves in ver. 41 bears up to 
that point no trace of such knowledge, otherwise we should have to suppose 
that they consciously pronounced their own condemnation. —ei¢ (see criti- 
calremarks) tpod#tnv: held Him as a prophet, i.e., in Him they felt they 
possessed a prophet ; on eic, which is met with in later writers in the sense 
of the predicate, see Bernhardy, p. 219. 


1 JJ. v.500 ; Xen. Oec. xviii. 2.6; Plut. Mor. Ecclus. v. 10. 
p. 701 C; Lucian, Gymnas. xxv. ; Ruth iii. 2; 2 Comp. Dan. ii. 44; Wisd. xi. 20. 


CHAP. XXII. 373 


CHAPTER XXII. 


Ver. 4, 7roiuaca] Following B C* DL 8, 1, 22, 23, we should, with Lachm. 
and Tisch., read 7roiwaxa because of the preponderance of manuscript author- 
ity. — Ver. 5. dpév . . . 6 dé] BL, min. Or.: 6¢ pév . . . d¢ dé. So Fritzsche, 
Lachm. Tisch. To be preferred on the strength of this external authority, 
particularly as C* 8, which have 0 piv . . . 6¢ dé, cannot be regarded as coun- 
ter-evidence. — For ei¢ t7v, Fritzsche, Lachm. Tisch. read éx? 77, following B 
CD 8, min. Or. Correctly ; ei¢ is a mechanical repetition of the one preced- 
ing. — Ver. 7. The Received text has dxovcac dé 0 Bac. Of the numerous read- 
ings, the simple 6 dé BacvAetc is the one favored by B L 8, min. Copt. Sahid., 
while most of the other witnesses have kai ax. 0 Bao. (so Fritzsche, Scholz, 
Tisch. 7). Lachm. reads 6 dé Bac. axotcac, but only following min. It. Vulg. 
Arm. Ir. Chrys. Eus. In presence of such a multiplicity of readings, we ought 
to regard the simple 6 dé Bao. as the original one (so also Tisch. 8), to which, 
in conformity with Matthew’s style (comp. on the reading of the Received text, 
especially ii. 3), axovcac was added, being inserted sometimes in one place and 
sometimes in another. Many important witnesses insert éxeivoc after BaciA. (D and 
eodd. of It. Lucif. place it before), a reading which is also adopted by Scholz and 
Tisch. 7 (therefore : «. axovcac 6 Baodede éExeivoc). It is not found in BL &, 
min. Copt. Sahid. codd. of It. Vulg. Ir. It, too, has been inserted mechanically 
as being in accordance with Matthew’s usual manner ; it would scarcely have 
been omitted as being somewhat in the way because of the éxeivog which follows, 
—Ver. 10. 6 yauoc] Tisch. 8: 6 vuugoév, following B* L &. A mistaken gloss, 
for vyuéov means the bride-chamber. — Ver. 13. dpate avrov Kat ExBadere] Lachm. 
Tisch. 8: é«Badere airtdv, following B L &, min. vss. and Fathers. The word 
dpate, not being needed to complete the picture, was struck out. The reading 
of the Received text ought to be maintained. The genuineness of the apare is 
likewise confirmed by the gloss dpare avtov rodav x. yerpov, Which came to be 
substituted for dyoavtec aitov 760. k. yeipac (so D, Cant. Vere. Ver. Colb. Corb. 
2, Clar. Ir. Lucif.). — Ver. 16. Aéyovrec] Fritzsche, Lachm,. Tisch. 8: Aéyovrac, 
following B L &, 27, vss. (?). An improper emendation. — Ver. 23. oi Aéyovrec] 
Lachm. and Tisch. 8 have deleted the article, folowing B DMS Z 8, min. Or., 
no doubt ; but incorrectly, for it is indispensable, and would be readily enough 
overlooked in consequence of the OI which immediately precedes it. — Ver. 25. 
For yaujoac, with Lachm. and Tisch., following BL &, min. Or. read yiuac, a 
form which the copyists would be very apt to exchange for one of more frequent 
occurrence in the New Testament. — For kai 7 yvvy, ver. 27, read, with Tisch. 
8, simply 7 yvr7, in accordance with the preponderance of evidence. — Ver. 28. 
Instead of év 7H obv avaor., we should, with Lachm. and Tisch., read év r. avaor. 
oiv, following BDL &, min. The reading of the Received text was intended 
to be an emendation as regards the position of the oiv. — Ver. 30. é«yauifovrar] 
Lachm. Tisch. 8: yauifovra, following B D L 8, min. Clem. Or. (twice) Ath. 
Isid. The compound form, besides being obviously suggested by Luke, is in- 


374 THE GOSPEL OF MATTHEW. 


tended to be more precise, so as to bring out the reference to women. Neither 
of the words belongs to the older Greek, hence the variations are not of a gram- 
matical nature. — rod Geot] wanting in BD, 1, 209, vss. and Fathers. Deleted 
by Lachm. Left out, in accordance with Mark xii. 25.— Ver. 32. ob éoru 6 
Gedc §26c} The second §¢6¢ is deleted by Lachm., following B L A, min. Copt. 
Sahid. Or. (?). It is likewise wanting in D 8, min. Eus. Chrys., which author- 
ities drop the article before the first 6ed¢. Tisch. 8 follows them, simply read- 
ing ot« éorwv Geéc. The sufficiently attested reading of the Received text is to 
be adhered to ; it was simplified in accordance with Mark and Luke. — Ver. 35. 
kai 2€ywv] not found in BL &, 33, vss. Deleted by Lachm., and Tisch, 8. The 
omission, though opposed to Matthew’s usual style (xii, 10, xvii. 10, xxii. 23, 
41, xxvii. 11), is in accordance with Mark xii. 28.— Ver. 37. ’Ijcovc] is to be 
deleted, with Lachm. and Tisch., following B L 8, 33, Copt. Sahid. Inserted 
from Mark xii. 29. — 7] having decisive evidence in its favor, is to be pre- 
ferred to eizev of the Received text.—- Ver. 38. For mpérn k. weyadn, read, with 
Fritzsche, Lachm. Tisch. : 7 weydAn x. toétn, following B D (which latter, how- 
ever, omits 7) L (which, however, inserts the article also before zpory) Z 8, 
min. vss. Hilar. ; zpaty would be placed first as being the chief predicate. 
Comp. devrépa below. — Ver. 40, kai oi xpogyrar kpéuavtat] B D L Z 8, 33, Syr. 
Vulg. It. Tert. Hil.: xpéwarar kai of tpoo. Recommended by Griesb., adopted 
by Fritzsche, Lachm. Tisch. The reading of the Received text is an exegetical 
correction. — Ver. 44, ixorédiov] BD GL ZT A®, min. vss. Aug.: droxdto. 
Recommended by Griesb., adopted by Lachm. and Tisch. The reading of the 
Received text is taken from the Sept. and Luke. 





Ver. 1. Kai aroxp. 6’Iyo. radw eirev, x.t.2.] In the full consciousness of 
His mission and His own superiority, Jesus replied (azoxp., see note on xi. 
25) to their hostile ¢yreiv, which only fear of the people kept in check, 
by adding another parabolic address (év zapaZ. plural of the category). 
Olshausen and Keim are not justified in doubting this connection on the 
ground that xxi. 45 f. is, as they suppose, the formal conclusion. The para- 
ble as given in Luke xiv. 16 ff. is not a Pauline modification of the one be- 
fore us (Baur, Hilgenfeld), but is rather to be regarded as representing an 
imperfect version of it which had found its way into the document consulted 
by Luke. Others are of opinion that the parable in Luke xiv. 16 ff. is the 
more original of the two, and that here it is interwoven with another (ver. 
8 ff.), the introduction to which, however, has disappeared, and that, in 
the process, still a third feature (vv. 6, 7) has been added from the parable 
which precedes. But coming as it does after the remark of xxi. 45 f., a 
somewhat copious parable such as that before us, so far from being a mere heap- 
ing of passage upon passage, is intended to serve as a forcible concluding address 
directed against His obdurate enemies,—an address, too, which does not 
interrupt the connection, since it was delivered before those for whom it 
was intended had had time to withdraw (ver. 15). As, in presence of such 
obduracy, thoughts of the divine love and of the divine wrath could not but 
crowd into the mind of Jesus ; so, on the other hand, there could not fail 
to be something corresponding to this in their parabolic utterance. 


1 Ewald, Schneckenburger, dé Wette, Strauss, Weizsicker, Keim, Scholten. 


CHAP. XXII., 2~10. 375 

Ver. 2 f. On yduove roveiv, to prepare a marriage feast,’ Michaelis, Fischer, 
Kuinoel, Paulus are mistaken in supposing that what is meant is a feast on 
the occasion of his son’s accession to the throne. —The Messiah is the bridegroom 
(xxv. 1; Rev. xxi. 2, 9), whose marriage represents the setting up of His 
kingdom. *— xaAéoac] é.e., to tell those who had been previously invited that 
it was now time to come to the marriage.* — dv6p. Baovd.] as in xviii. 23 ; 
Gnotoly, as in xiii, 24. 

Ver. 4. Td dpioror] not equivalent to deixvov,* nor a meal generally, but in 
the sense of breakfast, prandium (towards mid-day, J oseph. Antt. v. 4. 2), 
with which the series of meals connected with marriage was to begin. — jroi- 
axa (see critical remarks): paratum habeo. —xai révra] and everything 
generally. 

Ver. Off. ]. "Anedgoavréc] having paid no attention, said with reference merely 
to those who went away ; for the others, ver. 6, conducted themselves in a 
manner directly hostile. This in answer to Fritzsche, who holds that 
Matthew would have expressed himself more precisely : of d? ayed., of wiv 
anHa0ov . Instead of so expressing himself, however, 
he leaves it to appear from the context that the first oi represents the major- 
ity of those invited, while the oi 62 Aovrot constitute the remainder, so that 
the general form of expression (oi dé dyed., «.7.4.) finds its limitation in of dé 
This limitation might also have been expressed by oi 6é alone, in the 
sense of some, however.® — cic rov idtov aypsv]| to his own farm (Mark v. 14, vi. 
36), so that he preferred his own selfish interests to being present at the 
marriage of the royal prince, as was also the case with him who went to his 
merchandise, For idvoc, comp. note on Eph. v. 22. 

Ver. 8. Ov« Foav aéioc]® To represent the expedition against the rebels, 
and the destruction of their city as actually taking place while the supper 
is being prepared,—a thing hardly conceivable in real life,—is to intro- 
duce an episode quite in accordance with the illustrative character of the para- 
ble, which after all is only a jictitious narrative. Comp., for example, the 
mustard seed which grows to a tree ; the olive on which the wild branch is 
engrafted, Rom. xi., etc.; see also note on xxv. 1f. 

Ver, 9. "Exirdc duefddove tov dda] to the crossings of the roads, where people 
were in the habit of congregating most. It is evident from ver. 7, accord- 
ing to which the city is destroyed, that what is meant is not, as Kypke and 
Kuinoel suppose, the squares in the city from which streets branch off, 
but the places where the country roads cross each other.’ 

Ver. 10. ’EseAbdvrec] from the palace of the king out into the highways. 


ot O& Aourol, K.T.A. 


A0LTOl. 


1 Comp. Wetstein and Xen. de rep. Lac. i. 
6; Tob. viii. 19. 

2 Comp. ix. 15, John iii. 29, and note on 
Eph. v. 27. 

’ Comp. ver. 4; Luke xiv. 17. For in- 


6Comp. Acts xiii. 46. ‘* Praeteritum 
indignos eo magis praetermittit,” “ the past 
(were not worthy) passes by the unworthy 
the more markedly,” Bengel. 

7™Comp. Babyl. Berac. xiii. 1. Gloss. : 


stances of such repeated invitations, see 
Wetstein. 

“See Luke xiy. 12; Bornemann, ad Xen. 
Cyr. ii. 3. 21. 

© See Kiihner, IT. 2, p. 808. 


“Divitibus in more fuit, viatores pauperes 
ad convivia invitare,” “It was customary 
for the rich to invite poor travellers to their 
feasts.” 


376 THE GOSPEL OF MATTHEW. 


— ovvfyayov| through their invitation, which was accepted. — xovnp. re kai 
ayaf.| not ‘‘locutio quasi proverbialis,” ‘‘as if a kind of proverbial expres- 
sion,” Bengel, but they proceeded on the principle of not inquiring whether 
the parties in question were at the time morally bad or good, provided they 
only accepted the invitation. The separation between the bad and the good 
was not to be made by them, but subsequently by the king himself, and that 
according to a higher standard. Accordingly, the separation takes place in 
ver. 11 ff., where the man who has no wedding garment represents the 
xovnypot. —6 yauoc] not equivalent to vuuddr, but the wedding (1.e., the mar- 
riage feast, as in ver. 8),1 was full of guests. The emphasis, however, is on 


Ver. 11 f. "Evduya yapov] a dress suited for a marriage.’ It is true that, 
in interpreting this passage, expositors (Michaelis, Olshausen) lay stress on 
the oriental custom of presenting handsome caftans to those who are ad- 
mitted to the presence of royalty ; * and they are all the more disposed to 
do so, that such a custom is calculated to make it appear with greater promi- 
nence that righteousness is a jfvee gift, and that, consequently, man’s sin is 
so much the more heinous ; but neither can it be proved* that any such 
custom existed in ancient times, nor does the text make any allusion to it 
whatever, although it would have contributed not a little to bring out the 
idea of the parable. That those invited, however, should appear in festive 
attire was a matter of course, and demanded by the rules of ordinary eti- 
quette.° The only thing intended to be represented here is the moral dixaoobvy, 
which, by faith in Christ, men are required to assume after being called to 
the Messianic kingdom through yerdvoa.° So far, our Lord’s adversaries 
themselves could understand the figure of the wedding garment. But, of 
course, the true inward basis of the moral dixavocivy was to be sought in that 
righteousness which, as a free gift, and in virtue of the death of Jesus, 
would be bestowed on those who believed." The knowledge of this truth, 
however, had to be reserved for a later stage in the development of Chris- 
tian doctrine. — éraipe] Comp. on xx. 13. —éc eioqAbec, x.7.2.] a question 
expressive of astonishment : how has it been possible for thee to come in 
hither (how couldst thou venture to do so), without, etc.?— 7 éyor] 
although thou hadst not. Differently ver. 11 : ovk évdedvu.® 

Ver. 13. Ajoavrec, x.7.4.] that is, to make it impossible for him to get 
loose in course of the é«8aAAecba, as well as to secure against his escape sub- 
sequently from the oxéro¢ é£a7epov. — aitov 760.| his feet ; comp. on vili, 3.— 
For the didxovor of this passage (not dovAo: this time, for the servants waiting 
at the table are intended), see xiii. 41. — éxei fora, x.7.2.] not the words of 
the king, but, as the future éora indicates, a remark on the part of Jesus, 
having reference to the condition hinted at in the words 70 ckér. tr. é&dr. 
See, further, on viii. 12. 


1 Comp. Hom. Qd. iv. 3, J. xviii. 491. Kings y. 22, x. 22: Esth. vi. 8, viii. 15. 
2Comp. xAavis yapuixy, Aristoph. Av. 5 See Dougt. Anal. II. p. 28. 

1693. 6 Comp. vi. 33, v. 20. 
3 Harmer, Beobacht. Il. p. 117; Rosen- 7 Comp. the Fathers in Calovius. 

nuiller, Morgenl. V. p. 75 ff. ® Comp. Buttmann, Newt. Gr. p. 301 [E. T. 


4 Not from Gen. xlv. 22; Judg. xiv. 12; 2 351]. 


CHAP. XXII., 14. 377 


Ver. 14. Tdp] introduces the reason of the éxei éoraz, «.7.2. For, so far from 
the mere calling availing to secure against eternal condemnation, many, on 
the contrary, are called to the Messiah’s kingdom, but comparatively few are 
chosen by God actually to participate in it. This saying has a somewhat 
different purport in xx. 16 ; still in both passages the é«Aoy# is not, in the 
first instance, the judicial sentence, but the eternal decree of God ; adecree, 
however, which has not selected the future subjects of the kingdom in any 
arbitrary fashion, but has destined for this honor those who, by appropri- 
ating and faithfully maintaining the requisite dckasooivy (see on ver. 11 f.), 
will be found to possess the corresponding disposition and character, 
Comp. xxv. 34. Similarly, too, in xxiv. 22; Luke xviii. 7. It was, how- 
ever, only a legitimate consequence of the contemplation of history from a 
religious point of view, if the Christian consciousness felt warranted in at- 
tributing even this amount of human freedom to the agency of God (Eph. i. 
4; Phil. i. 13), and had to be satisfied, while maintaining the human ele- 
ment no less than the divine, with leaving the problem of their unity 
unsolved (see on Rom. ix. 33, Remark). 

Teaching of the parable: When the Messianic kingdom is about to be 
established, instead of those who have been invited to enter it, é.e., instead 
of the people of Israel, who will despise the (according to the plural) 
repeated invitations, nay, who will show their contempt to some extent by 
a violent behavior (for which God will chastise them, and that before the 
setting up of the kingdom, ver. 7), God will order the Gentiles to be called 
to His kingdom. When, however, it is being established, He will single 
out from among the Gentiles who have responded to the call such of them 
as turn out to be morally disqualified for admission, and condemn them to 
be punished in Gehenna. — The jirst invitation, and which is referred to in 
the rovc¢ xexAyuévove of ver. 8, is conveyed to Christ ; the successive invitations 
which followed were given through the apostles, who, ver. 9, likewise invite 
the Gentiles.’ — Observe in conection with rére, ver. 8, that itis not intended 
thereby to exclude the calling of the Gentiles before the destruction of Jeru- 
salem ; but simultaneously with this event the work of conversion was to be 
directed in quite a special manner toward the Gentiles. The destruction of 
Jerusalem was to form the signal for the gathering in of the julness of the 
Gentiles (Rom. xi. 25). Thus the rére marks a grand epoch in the historical 
development of events, an epoch already visible to the far-seeing glance of 
Jesus, though at the same time we are bound to admit the discrepancy that 
exists between this passage and the very definite statement regarding the 
date of the second advent contained in xxiv. 29. Asis clear from the whole 
connection, we must not suppose (Weisse) that the man without the wedding 
garment is intended to represent Judas ; but see on ver. 12. What is meant 
is a Christian with the old man still clinging to him.? 


Remarx.—The part of the parable extending from ver. 11 onwards was cer- 
tainly not spoken, so far as its immediate reference is concerned, with a view to 


1 Comp. xxviii. 19; Acts i. 8, xiii. 46. 
2 Comp. on Rom. xiii. 14; Gal. iii. 27,3; Eph. iv. 24; Col. iii. 12. 


378 THE GOSPEL OF MATTHEW. 


the Pharisees, but was essential to the completeness of the truths that were 
being set forth, inasmuch as, without that part, there would be no reference 
to the way in which the holiness of God would assert itself at the setting up 
of the Messianic kingdom. And the more this latter point is brought out, the 
more applicable did it become to the case of the Pharisees also, who would be 
able to infer from it what their fate was to be on that day when, even from 
among those who will be found to have accepted the invitation, God will sin- 
gle out such as appear without the garment of dixavocvvy, and consign them to 
the punishment of hell. 


Ver. 15 ff.1— 0i apicaioc] now no longer in their official capacity, as 
deputed by the Sanhedrim (xxi. 23, 45), but on their own responsibility, 
and as representing a party adopting a still bolder policy, and proceeding 
upon a new tack. —ézwc] They took counsel (comp. Aafor aipecw, ‘‘ having 
had a choice given,” Dem. 947, 20), expressly with a view to. Not equiva- 
lent to zac, the reading in D, and originating in a mistaken gloss.? For 
ov Bobrov, consultation, comp. xxvii. 1, 7, xxvill. 12 ; Mark iii. 6 ; Dio Cass, 
Xxxviiil. 43 ; classical writers commonly use cvufovsq, cvuBovdia. Others 
(Keim included), without grammatical warrant, render according to the 
Latin idiom: consilium ceperunt. Euthymius Zigabenus correctly ren- 
ders by ovoxérrovra. — év Adyw] in an utterance, i.e., in a statement which 
he might happen to make. This statement is conceived of as a trap or 
snare,? into which if He once fell they would hold Him fast, with a view 
to further proceedings against Him. Others explain : 6? épwrjceoc (Euthy- 
mius Zigabenus). But Jesus could not become involved in the snare unless 
He gave such an answer to their queries as they hoped to elicit. raywWebew, 
dillaqueare, is not met with in classical writers, though it frequently occurs 
in the Septuagint. 

Ver. 16. The Herodians are not Herod’s courtiers (Fritzsche, following 
Luther), but the political party among the Jews that sought to uphold the 
dynasty of the Herods, popular royalists, in opposition to the principle of a 
pure theocracy, though willing also to take part with the powerful Phari- 
sees against the unpopular Roman sway, should cireumstances render such a 
movement expedient. For other interpretations, some of them rather singu- 
lar, see Wolf and Kécher in loc. The passage in Joseph. Antt. xiv. 15. 10, 
refers to different circumstances from the present.* To regard (as is done 
by Origen, Maldonatus, de Wette, Winer, Neander, Volkmar) those here 
referred to as supporters of the Roman sway generally (and not merely of 
the Herodian dynasty in particular), is certainly not in accordance with the 
name they bear. Wemay further observe that no little cunning was shown 
by the orthodox hierarchy in selecting some of the younger members of 
their order (who as such would be less liable to be suspected) to co-operate 
with a party no less hostile than themselves to the Messianic pretender, 
with a view to betray Jesus into an answer savoring of opposition to the pay- 
ment of the tribute. This was the drift of the flattering preface to their 


1 Comp. Mark xii. 13 ff. ; Luke xx. 20 ff. XI. p. 98. 
2 Comp. xii. 14. 4 Comp. Ewald, Gesch. Chr. p. 97 ff. ; Keim, 
3 mayis, see Jacobs ad Anthol. VII. p. 409, III. p. 180 ff. 


CH APY wxar. 7018: 379 


question, and upon His answer they hoped to found an accusation before 
the Roman authorities.‘ But though the plot miscarried, owing to the 
answer being in the affirmative, the Pharisees had at least succeeded in now 
getting the Herodians to assume a hostile attitude toward Jesus, while at the 
same time they would be able to turn the reply to good account in the way 
of rendering Him unpopular with the masses: — 2éyovrec] that is, through 
their representatives. * — diddcxare, oidaner, x.7.2.] Comp. with this cunning, 
though in itself so true an instance of captatio benevolentiae, the sincere one 
in John iii. 2. — adnOije et] true, avoiding every sort of weidoc in your deal- 
ings, either simulando or dissimulando. In what follows, and which is still 
connected with 7, this is made more precise, being put both positively and 
negatively. — rv dddv Tov beov| the way prescribed by God, i.e., the behavior of 
men to each other which God requires.* — év dAyOeia] truthfully, as beseems 
the character of this way ; see on John xvii. 19. — ob péAe cox mept ovdevoc | 
Thou carest for no man, in Thy teaching Thou actest without regard to the 
persons of men. — od yap BAéresc, x.7.2.] giving the reason for the statement 
contained in oidayer, x.7.2. : for Thou lookest not to mere external appearances in 
men ; to Thee it is always a matter of indifference in regard to a man’s person 
whether he be powerful, rich, learned, etc., or the reverse ; therefore we are 
convinced, bre Gdn ei kad tHv dddv, K.T.A. Tpdcwrov avOp. denotes the out- 
ward manifestation in which men present themselves (comp. on xvi. 3). 
The emphasis, however, is on oi BAémee. We have not here a ‘natural 
paraphrase” of the Hebrew idiom ?ayuBdvecv xpécwrov (Luke xx. 21), which 
expresses another, though similar idea (in answer to de Wette ; see on Gal. 
li. 6). In classical Greek, 2. cic xp. twog is used in the sense of being bare- 
faced.*® 

Ver. 17. ‘Egeor] problem founded on theocratic one-sidedness, as though 
the Jews were still the independent people of God, according to their di- 
vine title to recognize no king but God Himself.* It was also on this 
ground that Judas the Gaulonite appears to have refused to pay the tribute.7 
As to «jvooc, not merely poll-tax, but land-tax as well, see on xvii. 25. — 
Kaicap:] without the article, being used as a proper name. — 7 oi] ‘flagi- 
tant responsum rotundum,” ‘‘ they demand imperatively a direct response,” 
Bengel. 

Ver. 18. Tijv zovgpiav] for they concealed malicious designs (the reverse of 
ax/orn¢) behind their seemingly candid, nay, flatteringly put question, in 
which their object was to try (eipdgere) whether He might not be betrayed 
into returning such an answer as might be used in further proceedings 
against Him. Apropos of iroxpirai, Bengel appropriately observes : ‘‘ verum 
se eis ostendit, ut dixerant, ver. 16 ;” ‘‘He shows them that He is true, as 
they had said, ver. 16 ;” but in the interrogative ri, why, is involved the 
idea of : what is your design in putting such a question ? 


1 Comp. Luke xx. 20. 4 Comp. Oavuagew mpocwror, Jude 16. 

2 Comp. xi. 2, xxvii. 19. 5 See Bremi ad Aeschin. p. 370. 

$Comp. thy Stxaoovvny 7. O00, Vi. 83; Ta ® Comp. Michaelis, Mos. R. III. p. 154. 
Epya 7. Geov, John vi. 28; and so Ps. xxvii. 7 See Joseph. Anéé. xviii. 1. 1. 


143 Wisd. v. 7; Bar. iii. 18. 


380 THE GOSPEL OF MATTHEW. 

Ver. 19. Td véucocua 7. x.]? The tribute was paid in Roman, not in Jew- 
ish money.? — rpooqveyk. adt@ dnvdp.] they had such current coin upon them. 

Ver. 21 f. ‘‘There He catches them in their own trap,” Luther. The 
pointing to the image and inscription furnishes the questioners with ocular 
demonstration of the actual existence and practical recognition of Caesar’s 
sway, and from these Jesus infers not merely the lawfulness, but the duty 
of paying to Caesar what belongs to Caesar (namely, the money, which shows, 
by the stamp it bears, the legitimacy of the existing rule); but He also rec- 
ognizes at the same time the necessity of attending to their theocratic duties, 
which are not to be regarded as in any way compromised by their political 
circumstances : and to God what is God’s (what you derive from Him in 
virtue of His dominion over you). By this is not meant simply the temple 
tribute, nor the repentance which God may have desired to awaken through 
punishing them with a foreign rule (Ebrard), nor merely the life of the soul 
(Tertullian, Erasmus, Neander); but everything, in short, of a material, re- 
ligious, and ethical nature, which God, as sovereign of the theocratic 
people, is entitled to exact from them as His due. By the 7a Keicapoc, on 
the other hand, we are not to understand merely the civil taz, but every- 
thing to which Caesar was entitled in virtue of his legitimate rule over the 
theocratic nation. So with this reply Jesus disposes of the ensnaring 
question, answering it immediately with decision and clearness, and with 
that admirable tact which is only met with where there is a moral insight 
into the whole domain of duty ; in a quick and overpowering manner He 
disarmed His adversaries, and laid the foundation for the Christian doctrine 
which was more fully developed afterwards,* that it is the duty of the 
Christian not to rebel against the existing rulers, but to conjoin obedience to 
their authority with obedience to God. At the same time, there cannot be 
a doubt that, although, in accordance with the question, Jesus chooses to 
direct His reply to the first and not to the second of those two departments 
of duty (in answer to Klostermann’s note on Mark), the second is to be re- 
garded as the unconditional and absolute standard, not only for the first of 
the duties here mentioned (comp. Acts v. 29), but for every other. Chrys- 
ostom observes that : what is rendered to Caesar must not be ryv eicéBevav 
rapaBAarrovra, ‘‘ damaging to piety,” otherwise it is ovKére Kaicapoc, anna tov 
diaBdrov gdpoc Kai TéAoc, ‘‘ no longer Caesar’s tribute and tax, but the devil’s.” 
Thus the second part of the precept serves to dispose of any collision among 
our duties which accidental circumstances might bring about (Rom. xiii. 5). 
According to de Wette, Jesus, in the first part of His reply, does not refer 
the matter inquired about to the domain of conscience at all, but treats it 
as belonging only to the sphere of politics (Luke xii. 14), and then adds in 
the second part : ‘‘ You can and ought to serve God, in the first place, 


1“Nummum aliquem ejus monetae, in 
qua tributum exigi solet,”’ ‘‘a certain piece 
of that money by which the tribute was 
customarily exacted,’ Grotius. 

2“ TIbicunque numisma regis alicujus 
obtinet, illic incolae regem istum pro dom- 


ino agnoscunt,” “‘ Wherever the coin of any 
king obtaining currency, there the inhabi- 
tants acknowledge that king for their lord,” 
Maimonides in Gezelah v. 18. 

3 Rom. xiii. 1 ff.; 1 Tim. ii. 1 f.; 1 Pet. ii. 
He these Lie 


CHAP. XXII., 23-29. o81 


with your moral and religious dispositions, and should not mix up with 
His service what belongs to the domain of civil authority.” But such a 
severance of the two is not in accordance with the context ; for the answer 
would in that case be an answer to an alternative question based on the gen- 
eral thought : is it lawful to be subject to Caesar, or to God only ? Where- 
as the reply of Jesus is: you ought to do both things, you ought to be 
subject to God and to Caesar as well ; the one duty is inseparable from the 
other ! Thus our Lord rises above the alternative, which was based on the- 
ocratic notions of a one-sided and degenerate character, to the higher wnity 
of the true theocracy, which demands no revolutions of any kind, and also 
looks upon the right moral conception of the existing civil rule as neces- 
sarily part and parcel of itself (John xix. 11), and consequently a simple 
yes or no in reply to the question under consideration is quite impossible. — 
axédore} the ordinary expression for paying what it is one’s duty to pay, as in 
xx. 8, xxi. 41; Rom. xiii. 7. — Ver. 22. 2@abuacav]. ‘‘Conspicuo modo 
ob responsum tutum et verum,” ‘‘in a conspicuous manner at his safe and 
true answer,” Bengel.? 

Ver. 23. Comp. Mark xii. 18 ff. ; Luke xx. 27 ff. ; Matthew condenses. 
— Oi Aéyovteg pu} elvat avaor.| who assert, etc., serving to account for the ques- 
tion which follows. On the necessity of the article, inasmuch as the Sad- 
ducees do not say to Jesus that there is no resurrection, but because their 
regular confiteor is here quoted, comp. Kiihner ad Xen. ii. 7. 138 ; Mark xii. 
18 : olirwee Aéyovor. 

Ver, 24 ff. A free citation of the law respecting levirate marriage, Deut. 
xxv. 5, and that without following the Septuagint, which in this instance 
does not render D3? by the characteristic érvyaufp. If a married man died 
without male issue, his brother was required to marry the widow, and to 
register the first-born son of the marriage as the son of the deceased hus- 
band.* — éxvyauBpedverv, to marry as brother-in-law (levir. DI*).3 — éwe tov éxra] 
until the seven, 7.e., and in the same manner they continued to die until the 
whole seven were dead. Comp. xviii. 22 ; 1 Macc. ii. 38. — torepov rdvrov] 
later than all the husbands. 

Ver. 28. Founding upon this alleged incident (which was undoubtedly 
a silly invention got up for the occasion, Chrysostom), as being one strictly 
in accordance with the law, the Sadducees now endeavor to make it appear 
that the doctrine of the resurrection—a doctrine which, for the purpose of 
being able to deny it, they choose to apprehend in a gross material sense— 
is irreconcilable with the law ; while, by their fancied acuteness, they try to 
involve Jesus Himself in the dilemma of having to give an answer either 
disadvantageous to the law or favorable to their doctrine. — yvv4] Predicate. 

Ver. 29. Jesus answers that, in founding upon Deut. xxv. 5 the denial of 
the resurrection, which their question implies, they are mistaken, and that 


1 Ovn eriotevoay Sé, Euthymius Zigabenus. Bodenstedt, d. Volker des Kaukasus, p. 82; 
2 See Saalschiitz, WZ. &. p. 754 ff.; Ewald, Benary, p. 31 ff. 
Alterth. p. 276 ff.; Benary, de Hebraeor. levi- 3 Comp. Gen. xxxviii. 8; Test. XII. patr. 
ratu, Berl. 1835. As to other Oriental na- p. 599. Differently emvyayBp. rue in 1 Macc. 
tions, see Rosenmiiller, Morgenl. V. p. 81; x.54; 1Sam. xviii. 22. 


382 THE GOSPEL OF MATTHEW. 

in a twofold respect : (1) they do not understand the Scriptures, t.e., they 
fail to see how that doctrine actually underlies many a scriptural utterance ; 
and (2) they do not sufficiently realize the extent of the power of God, inas- 
much as their conceptions of the resurrection are purely material, and 
because they cannot grasp the thought of a higher corporeality to be evolved 
from the material body by the divine power. And then comes an illustra- 
tion of the latter point in ver. 30, and of the former in ver. 31. 

Ver. 30. ’Ev yap tH avacrace] not : in the resurrection life, but, as in ver. 
28: at the resurrection in answer to Fritzsche), which will be signalized 
not by marrying or giving in marriage, but by ushering in a state of things 
in which men will be like the angels, therefore a higher form of existence, 
from which the earthly conditions of life are eliminated, in which human 
beings will be not indeed disembodied, but endowed with a glorified cor- 
poreality, 1 Cor. xv. 44. The cessation of human propagation, not the abo- 
lition of the distinction of sex (Tertullian, Origen, Hilary, Athanasius, 
Basil, Grotius, Volkmar), is essentially implied in the adfapoia of the spir- 
itual body. Comp. Luke xx. 36. —yayotcw] applies to the bridegroom ; 
yauiCovrat,’ on the other hand, to daughters who are given in marriage by their 
parents. — 422 oc ayyedo., K.7.2.] but they are as the angels of God in heaven. 
év ovpavw belongs not to eioi, but to adyyedo. r. Oeov, because the partakers in 
the resurrection (and the Messianic kingdom) are not understood to be in 
heaven.” It isobvious from our passage—in which the likeness to the angels 
has reference to the nature of the future body—that the angels are to be con- 
ceived of not as mere spirits, but as possessing a supramundane corporeality. 
This is necessarily presupposed in the language before us.* The dé&a of the 
angels is essentially connected with their corporeality,*— While a similar 
idea of the future body and the future mode of existence is met with in 
Rabbinical writers (see Wetstein), it is also conjoined, however, with the 
gross materialistic view.*® 

Ver. 31 f. But with reference to the resurrection, set over against the fore- 
going év yap TH avaor. ; the sequence of the address is indicated by the 
prepositions. epi t7¢ avacr. should be taken along with oi« avéyvore. — iuiv] 
imparts the vivacity of individuality to the words of Jesus. The quotation 
is from Ex. iii. 6. His opponents had cited a passage from the law ; with 
a passage from the law Jesus confutes them, and thus combats them with 
their own weapons. It is wrong to refer to this in support of the view that 
the Sadducees accepted only the Pentateuch as authoritative scripture.* Yet 
these aristocrats regarded the law, and the mere letter of the law too, as 
possessing supreme authority. — ov« éoriw 6 Oedc, «.7.A.] This is the major 
proposition of a syllogism, in terms of which we are warranted in recogniz- 





1 Apoll. de Synt. p. 277, 18. 

2 xxvii ol ff.3 1. (Cor XV. bes 2 eet. ill. de: 
not inconsistent with 1 Thess. iv. 17. 

3 Comp. 1 Cor. xv. 40; Phil. ii. 10; Hahn, 
Theol. ad. N. T. 1. p. 267; Weiss, Bibl. Theol. 
p. 68; Kahnis, Dogm. I. p. 556. 

4In opposition to Delitzsch, Psychol. p. 
66. 


§ “*Mulier illa, quae duobus nupsit in hoe 
mundo, priori restituitur in mundo futuro,” 
“That woman who married two husbands 
in this world is, in the future world, restor- 
ed to the former,’’ Sohar Gen. f. xxiv. 96. 

6 Tertullian, Origen, Jerome, Luther, 
Paulus, Olshausen, Stiskind in the Stud. uv. 
Krit. 1880, p. 665. 


CHAP. XXII., 33-35. 383 
® 

ing in the passage here quoted a scriptural testimony in favor of the resur- 
rection. The Sadducees had failed to draw the inference thus shown to be 
deducible from the words ; hence ver. 29 : ju7 eiddérec Tae ypadde, a fact which 
Jesus has now confirmed by the illustration before us. The point of the ar- 
gument does not turn upon the present eiui (Chrysostom, and those who 
follow him), but is to this effect : seeing that God calls Himself the God of 
the patriarchs, and as he cannot sustain such arelation toward the dead, 7.e., 
those who are absolutely dead, who have ceased to exist (ob« évtwv Kat kabd- 
nak agavicbévrwv, ‘‘not existing and absolutely disappeared,” Chrysostom), 
but only toward the living, it follows that the deceased patriarchs must be 
living,—living, that is, in Sheol, and living as avaorjvac péAdovtec, ‘‘ about 
to rise from the dead” (Euthymius Zigabenus).’ 

Ver. 33. Oi dy201] arévypor kat adéxacro., ‘‘ free from malice and impartial,” 
Euthymius Zigabenus. Comp. vii. 28. 

Ver. 34. The following conversation respecting the great commandment 
is given in Mark xii. 28 ff. with such characteristic detail, that Matthew’s 
account cannot fail to have the appearance of being incomplete, and, consid- 
ering the bias of the incident (see note on ver. 35), to look as if it represent- 
ed a corrupt tradition. In Luke x, 25 ff. there is a similar conversation, 
which, however, is not given as another version of that now before us, but 
as connected with a different incident that took place some time before. — 
ol dé Papic.| Comp. ver. 15. They had already been baffled, and had with- 
drawn into the background (ver. 22); but the victory of Jesus over the Sad- 
ducees provoked them to make one more attempt, not to avenge the defeat 
of those Sadducees (Strauss), nor to display their own superiority over them 
(Ebrard, Lange),—neither view being hinted at in the text, or favored by 
anything analogous elsewhere,—but, as was the object in every such chal- 
lenge, to tempt Jesus, if that were at all possible, to give such an answer as 
might be used against Him, see ver. 85. — dxovcavrec] whether while present 
(among the multitude), or when absent, through the medium, perhaps, of 
their spies, cannot be determined. — cuvfyOyoav éxi rd aitd| for the purpose 
of concertirpg measures for a new attack. Consequently the voyixdc of ver. 
35 had to be put forward, and, while the conversation between Jesus and him 
is going on, the parties who had deputed him gather round the speakers, 
ver. 41. There is, accordingly, no reason to apprehend any discrepancy 
(Késtlin) between the present verse and ver. 41. — éx? rd avré] locally, not 
said with reference to their sentiments.” 

Ver. 35. Nowixéc] the only instance in Matt. ; it is met with in none of the 
other Gospels except that of Luke. It occurs, besides, in Tit. iii. 13. The 
word is used to signify one who is conversant with the law, éxiothywwv Tov véuov 
(Photius).* It is impossible to show that there is any essential difference of 
meaning between this word and ypauyaretc (see note on ii. 4); comp. on the 
contrary, Luke xi. 52, 53. — The term vowikde is more specific (jurisconsultus), 


1Comp. Heb. xi. 16. The similar infer- 2 See on Acts i. 15; Ps. ii. 2. 
ence in Menasse f. Isr. de Resurr. i. 10. 6, ap- S$ Plut. Sell. 36; Strabo, xii. p. 539; Diog. 
pears to have been deduced from the pas- LL. vi. 54; Epictet.i. 13; Anthol. xi. 382. 19. 
sage before us. Comp. Schoettgen, p. 180. 


384 THE GOSPEL OF MATTHEW. 


* 
and more strictly Greek ; ypaupatetc, on the other hand, is more general 
(literatus), and more Hebrew in its character (12D). The latter is also of 
more frequent occurrence in the Apocr.; while the formér is met with only 
in 4 Macc. v. 3. In their character of teachers they are designated 
vouodiddcxaro, Luke v.17; Acts v. 37; 1 Tim. i. 7. — respawn airév] differ- 
ent from Mark xii. 28 ff., and indicating that the question was dictated by 
a malicious intention (Augustine, Grotius). The ensnaring character of the 
question was to be found in the circumstance that, if Jesus had specified any 
particular roéry¢ of a great commandment (see on ver. 36), His reply would 
have been made use of, in accordance with the casuistical hair-splitting of 
the schools, for the purpose of assailing or defaming Him on theological 
grounds. He specifies, however, those two commandments themselves, in which 
all the others are essentially included, thereby giving His answer indirectly, 
as though he had said: supreme love to God, and sincerest love of our 
neighbor, constitute the xovotye about which thou inquirest. This love must 
form the principle, spirit, life of all that we do. 

Ver. 36 f. What kind of a commandment (qualitative, comp. xix. 18) is 
great in the law ; what must be the nature of a commandment in order to 
constitute it great? The commandment, then, which Jesus singles out as 
the great one kav’ é£oy4v, and which, as corresponding to the subsequent 
devrépa, He places at the head of the whole series (7 yeydAy x. mpory, see the 
critical notes) in that of Deut. vi. 5, quoted somewhat freely after the Sept. 
—kbpiov tiv Oedv cov] THIN m7? OX, in which regular designation rdv edv 
cov is in apposition, consequently not to be rendered : ‘‘ wtpote Dominum 
tuum,” ‘‘as being thy God,” Fritzsche.—Love to God must fill the whole 
heart, the entire inner sphere in which all the workings of the personal con- 
sciousness originate,’ the whole soul, the whole faculty of feeling and desire, 
and the whole understanding, all the powers of thought and will, and must 
determine their operation. We have thus an enumeration of the different 
elements that go to make up 70 deiv dyarav Tov Oedy dAoWbyuwc, TovTd gate TO 
Oa TavTwv TOV THC Woy pepov kal Svvduewv abTo rpocéyerv, ‘‘ the necessity of 
loving God with all the heart, that is the devoting oneself to Him with all 
the portions and powers of the heart’? (Theophylact), the complete harmo- 
nious self-dedication of the entire inner man to God, as to its highest good.’ 

Ver. 39. But a second is like unto it, of the same nature and character, pos-- 
sessing to an equal extent the rovdryc,* which is the necessary condition of 
greatness, and therefore no less radical and fundamental.* We should not 
adopt the reading éyoia aity, recommended by Griesbach, following many 
Uncials and min. (but in opposition to the vss.) ; nor again that of 
Fritzsche, éuoia airy, aity (conjecture). The former was presumed (comp. 
Mark xii. 31) to be a necessary emendation, because from the commandment 


1 Delitzsch, Psychol. p. 248 ff.; Krumm, 
de notionib. psych. Paul. § 12. 

2 Comp. Weiss, Bibl. Theol. p. 81, ed. 2. 

3 Ore atTy 
aitys cvyKpotettar madcy, ** because this leads 
the way for that, and by it again is approy- 


éxeivnv mpoodomoet, Kal map’ 


ed,”’ Chrysostom. 

4 Comp. tf John iv. 16, 20, 21; Matt. xxv. 
40, 45. Euthymius Zigabenus : aAAnAoxovv- 
Tat k. hepadAnAdé ciary at dvo, ‘* these two are 
held together and carried together.” 


CHAP. XXII., 40-43. 385 
being immediately added, the demonstrative seemed requisite by way of in- 
troducing it. Moreover, according to the context, there would be no need 
forthe dative in the case of 6uov0c. The commandment is quoted from Lev. 
xix. 18, after the Sept. — ayarfcerc] This, the inward, moral esteem, and the 
corresponding behavior, may form the subject of a command, though the 
same cannot be said of ¢Aeiv, which is love as a matter of fecling.1 The 
oi2ia Tov Kéopov (Jas. iv. 4), on the other hand, may be forbidden ; comp. 
Rom. viii. 7 ; the gAezy of one’s own yuy7% (John xii. 25), and the py gireiv 
rov Kbptov (1 Cor. xvi. 22), may be condemned. comp. also Matt. x. 87. —é¢ 
ceavr.| as thou shouldst love thyself, so as to cherish toward him no less than 
toward thyself that love which God would have thee to feel, and to act 
toward him (by promoting his welfare, etc., comp. vii. 12) in sucha 
manner that your conduct may be in accordance with this loving spirit. 
Love must do away with the distinction between I and Thou.? 

Ver. 40. Those two commandments contain the fundamental principle of 
the whole of the commandments in the Old Testament. —tairac] with 
emphasis: these are the two commandments on which, etc. — k«péuarac] 
depends thereon, so that those commandments constitute the basis and essen- 
tial condition of the moral character of all the others, Rom. xiii. 8 f. ; Gal. 
v. 14. —kxai oi xpodyjra| so far as the preceptive element in them is con- 
cerned.* Thus Jesus includes more in His reply than was contemplated by 
the question (ver. 36) of the vouixédc. 

Ver. 41.° Jesus, in His turn, now proceeds to put a question to the Phar- 
isees (who in the meantime have gathered round him, see on ver. 34), for 
the purpose, according to Matthew’s view of the matter (ver. 46), of convinc- 
ing them of their own theological helplessness, and that in regard to the 
problem respecting the title ‘‘Son of David,” to which David himself bears 
testimony, and with the view of thereby escaping any further molestation 
on their part. According to de Wette, the object was : to awaken a higher 
idea of His (non-political) mission (Neander, Baumgarten-Crusius, Bleek, 
Schenkel, Keim). This view, however, is not favored by the context, which 
represents Jesus as victor over his impudent and crafty foes, who are: 
silenced and then subjected to the castigation described in ch. xxiii. 

Ver. 43 f. Tac] how is it possible, that, etc.—In his question Jesus starts 
with what was a universal asswmption in His day, viz., that David was the 
author of Ps. ex., which, however, is impossible, the fact being that it was 
only composed in the time of this monarch, and addressed to him (see Ewald 
on this psalm). The fact that Jesus shared ‘the opinion referred to, and en- 
tertained no doubt as to the accuracy of the title of the psalm, is not to be 
questioned, though it should not be made use of, with Delitzsch and many 
others, for the purpose of proving the Davidic authorship of the composi- 





' Comp. on vy. 44, and see in general Titt- 
mann, Syn. p. 50 ff. 

* Bengel: ‘Qui Deum amat, se ipsum 
amabit ordinate, citra philautiam,” ‘He 
who loves God will love himself, én a proper 
degree, without selfishness,” Eph. v. 28. 

3 Comp. Plat. Legg. viii. p. 831 CG: 2& dy 


Kpewaméevyn Taga Wuxy ToAcrov, “from which 
(possessions) every citizen’s life being sus- 
pended.” Pind. O/. vi. 125; Xen. Symp. 
viii. 19; Gen. xliv. 30; Judith viii. 24. 

4 Comp. on v. 17. 

5 Comp. Mark xii. 35 ff.; Luke xx. 41 ff. 


386 THE GOSPEL OF MATTHEW. 

tion ; fora historico-critical question of this sort could only belong to the 
sphere of Christ’s ordinary national development, which, as a rule, would 
necessarily bear the impress of His time. With év rvetu. before us, the idea 
of accommodation or of a play upon logic is not to be thought of, although 
Delitzsch himself maintains that something of the kind is possible. Among 
the unwarrantable and evasive interpretations of certain expositors is that of 
Paulus, who thinks that the object of the question of Jesus from beginning 
to end was the historico-critical one of persuading His opponents that the 
psalm was not composed by David, and that it contains no reference to 
the Messiah.’ — év rvetyartc] meaning, perhaps, that He did not do so on 
His own authority, but émpulsu Spiritus Sancti (2 Pet. i. 21).2 David was 
regarded as a prophet, Acts ii. 30, i. 16. — airév] the Messiah ; for the per- 
sonage in the psalm is a prophetic type of the Messiah ; as also the Rabbini- 
cal teachers recognized in him one of the foremost of the Messianic predic- 
tions (Wetstein, Schoettgen), and only at a later period would they hear of 
any other reference.* — éw¢ dv 00, k.7.A.] see on 1 Cor. xv. 25. 

Ver. 45 f. Ei oiv Aaveid, x.t.4.] The emphasis rests on the correlative terms 
Kopiov and vide : If, then, as appears from this language of the psalm, David, 
whose son He is, according to your express confession, still calls Him Lord, 
how is this to be reconciled with the fact that,He is at the same time the 
psalmist’s son ? Surely that styling of Him as Lord must seem incompatible 
with the fact of such sonship ! The difficulty might have been solved in 
this way : according to His human descent He is David’s son ; but, accord- 
ing to His divine origin as the Son of God, from whom He is sprung, and 
by whom He is sent,*—in virtue of which relation He is superior to David 
and all that is merely human, and, by His elevation to the heavenly dé&a 
(Acts ii. 34), destined to share in the divine administration of things in a 
manner in keeping with this superiority,—He is by David, speaking under 
the influence of the Holy Spirit, called his Zord. The Pharisees understood 
nothing of this twofold relation, and consequently could not discern the 
true majesty and destiny of the Messiah, so as to see in Him both David’s 
Son and Lord. Hence not one of them was found capable of answering the 
question as tothe réc . Observe that the question does not imply a 
negative, as though Jesus had asked, py vide abrov éore ;—ovnérte] ‘‘ Nova 
dehine quasi scena se pandit,” ‘*‘ From hence a new scene, as it were, opens 
itself,” Bengel. 


5 eon 


1 For the correct view of this matter, see 
Diestel in the Jahrb. f. D. Theol. 1863, p. 541 
f. ; see also the pointed elucidation, as well 
as refutation of the other interpretations, 
in Keim, III. p. 154 ff. ; comp. Gess, I. p. 128 
f. Then there is the explanation, frequent- 
ly offered since Strauss suggested it, and 
which is to the effect that Jesus wished to 
cast discredit upon the currently received 
view regarding Messiah’s descent from 
David, and that He Himself was not de- 
scended from David,—a circumstance which 


is supposed to have undoubtedly stood in 
the way of His being recognized as the 
Messiah (Schenkel, Weisse, Colani, Holtz- 
mann); all which is decidedly at variance 
with the whole of the New Testament, 
where the idea of anon-Davidic Messiah 
would be a contradictio in adjecto. 

2 Luke ii. 27; 1 Cor. xii. 3; Rom. yiiil 15, 
1b: 

3 Delitzsch on Heb. i. 18, and on Ps. ex). 

4 xi. 27, xvii. 26; John i. 14, 18, vi. 46, vii. 
28 f.; Rom. i. 3 f. 


CHAP, XXII, 387 


CHAPTER XXIII. 


Ver. 3. tapeiv] after juiv is deleted by Fritzsche, Lachm. and Tisch., follow- 
ing Mill. It is wanting in very important authorities. A gloss, for which certain 
authorities have roveiv. — typeite x. toeite] Lachm. : rowoate x. typeite. So also 
Tisch. This is the original reading (B L Z &** 124, Hilar.) ; for the sake of 
uniformity, zoujoate was changed into roveire (D, 1, 209, Eus. Dam.) ; but the 
transposed order rnp. xk. 7. is an ancient logical correction) as old as Syr. Vulg. 
It.). — Ver. 4. For ydp Lachm. and Tisch. read dé, following weighty attesta- 
tion. Correctly; yap was meant to be more precise. — kai ducGacr.] deleted by 
Tisch. 8, following L 8, vss. Ir. But the evidence in favor of the words is too 
strong, and their omission on account of the two xai’s might so readily occur 
that they must not be regarded as an interpolation from Luke xi. 46.— 76 dé] 
Lachm. Tisch. 8: airol dé 76, following B D L 8&, and two min. vss. and 
Fathers. Exegetical amplification after Luke xi. 46.— Ver. 5. For 6é after 
tAardv. Lachm. Tisch. 8 have ydp, in accordance with B D L 8, min. vss. Chrys. 
Damase. See on ver. 4. —'r@v ivar. avt.] deleted by Lachm. and Tisch., follow- 
ing B D 8, 1, 22, vss. Correctly ; an explanatory addition. — Ver. 6. For @uA. 
te we should, with Lachm. and Tisch., read A, dé, in accordance with decisive 
evidence. — Ver. 7, Lachm. and Tisch. 8 have fa8(i only once, following B L 
A &, min. vss. and Fathers. But how easily may the reduplication have been 
overlooked, both on its own account and in consequence of its not occurring in 
the instance immediately following! Comp. on Mark xiv. 45. — Ver. 8. kafnyn- 
tHe] Fritzsche, Lachm., and Tisch., following Grotius, Mill, and Bengel, read 
didoxaioc, which Rinck also approves. No doubt xaSnyn7. has a very decided 
preponderance of evidence in its favor (of the uncials only B U &8**? read 
d.dack.) ; but, owing to ver. 10, it is so utterly inappropriate in the present 
instance, that it must be regarded as an old and clumsy gloss inserted from ver. 
10 (namely, caSnynti¢ 6 Xpiotéc, according to the reading of Elz. Scholz). By 
this it was merely intended to intimate that it is Christ that is referred to here 
as well as in ver. 10 below. — Ver. 10. ei¢ yap iudv éotw 6 Kany.) Lachm. and 
Tisch. : dre xa9nynric tudv éoriv ec. The latter is the best attested reading ; 
that of the Received text is to conform with ver. 8 f. —In the Teatus receptus the 
two verses, 13 and 14, stand in the following order: (1) oval . . . eiceAfeiv; (2) 
obat . . . kpiwa, in opposition to E F GH K MSU VI AI, vss. and Fathers. 
On this evidence Griesbach, Scholz, Fritzsche have adopted the transposed 
order. But oval . . . xpiua (in Elz. ver. 14) is wanting in B D L Z 8, min. vss. 
and Fathers (Origen as well), and is correctly deleted by Lachm. and Tisch., 
although defended by Rinck and Keim. An interpolation from Mark xii. 40 ; 
Luke xx. 47, — Ver. 17. tic yap pe(Sov] Lachm. : ti yap peifov, but, undoubtedly, 
on the evidence of Z only. The vss. (Vulg. It.) can have no weight here. — 
dytdfov] Lachm. and Tisch. : dy:écac, following B D Z &, Cant. ; Vulg. has 
sanctificat. The present participle is from ver. 19, where there is no difference 
in the reading. — Ver. 19. ywpol cai].is wanting in D L Z 8, 1, 209, and several 


388 THE GOSPEL OF MATTHEW. 


vss., also Vulg. It. Bracketed by Lachm,, condemned by Rinck, deleted by 
Tisch. ; and justly so, because there was no motive for omitting the words, 
while their insertion would be readily suggested by ver. 17. — Ver. 21. For 
Katoixnoavte Elz. Lachm. Tisch. 8 have xatoxovyts, following B HS &, min., 
the force of the aorist not being apprehended. — Ver. 23. Elz. : ravra édec; but 
Griesb., Fritzsche, Lachm., Tisch. 7 have adopted ravra dé édst. In both cases 
the evidence is considerable ; but how readily might dé be omitted before édex 
through oversight on the part of the transcriber !— Ver. 25. ££] is wanting in C 
D, min. Chrys. Deleted by Lachm. It had been omitted as unnecessary. — 
Elz. Lachm. Tisch. read axpaciac, instead of which Griesb. and Scholz have 
aduxiac. The evidence is very much divided, being strong on both sides ; dkpa- 
ciac is to be preferred. This word, the only other instance of which in the 
N. T. is at 1 Cor. vii. 5, appeared to be inappropriate, and came to be repre- 
sented by a variety of glosses (uxa9apolac, mAeovetiac, adikiac, movnpiac). — Ver. 
26. ator] Fritzsche, Lachm., Tisch. : aitov, following B* D E* min, Aeth. Vere. 
This av7ov is bound up with the omission of kai ti¢ Tapoy. in D, min. Cant. 
Vere. Clem. Chrys. Ir. (deleted by Tisch.). Those words, however, are evi- 
dently an insertion from ver. 25, an insertion, moreover, which is inconsistent 
with airov, so that the words ought to be deleted and aivod preferred to airar, 
— Ver. 27. rapouoialere| Lachm. : duordfere, only on the evidence of B, 1. The 
preposition has been left out, probably because the compound form is not 
found elsewhere in the N. T. -—Ver. 30. jwefa, instead of 7uev of the Received 
text, is supported by decisive evidence. — Ver. 34. «ai é£ aiz.] in the first case 
kui is wanting in B M A II &, min. codd. of It. Syr. Arm. Or. (once). Deleted by 
Lachm. and Tisch.; but how readily may this cai have been omitted since the 
next clause opens with «ai !— Ver. 36. Before 7&e:, Griesb., followed by Matth., 
Fritzsche, Scholz, inserted 67, which, however, Lachm. and Tisch. have deleted 
again. 067: has important evidence both for and against. A common interpo- 
lation.—ravra ravta] The order ruvra tavra (Lachm. Tisch. 7) is well attested, 
though there is a preponderance of evidence (C D &, etc., Vulg. It. for the 
reading of the Received text. — Ver. 37. voocia éav7ic] Lachm. has deleted 
éav7., but only on the evidence of B, vss, Clem. (once) Or. (once) Cypr. Hil., 
and notwithstanding the probable omission of the pronoun as apparently 
superfluous. Had it been inserted from Luke xiii. 34, it would have been 
placed between 7a and voooia. For éavri¢ Tisch. reads aire, following B** D, 
marg. M A S* 33, Clem. (once) Eus. Cyr. Theodoret. The reflective might be 
easily overlooked, as was often the case. — Ver. 38. épyuoc is wanting in B L 
Copt.* Corb. 2, Or. Deleted by Lachm. ; to be maintained on account of the 
preponderating evidence in its favor, though in the case of Luke xiii. 35 it is 
inserted as a gloss from Matthew. 


Ver, 1. After the Pharisees have been thus silenced, there now follows 
the decisive and direct attack upon the hierarchs, in a series of overwhelm- 
ing denunciations extending to ver. 89, and which, uttered as they are on 
the eve of His death, form a kind of Messianic onueiov through which Jesus _ 
seeks to testify against them. Luke has inserted at ch. xi. portions of this 
discourse in an order different from the original ; but he has given in the 
* present connection, like Mark xii., only a few fragments, so that, keeping 
in view that a collection of our Lord’s sayings was made by Matthew, and 


CHAP! XXIITs; 2,3. 389 


considering the originality in respect of matter and arrangement which 
characterizes the grand utterances now before us, the preference must be 
accorded to the report furnished by this apostle (in answer to Schleier- 
macher, Schulz, Schneckenburger, Olshausen, Volkmar). The entire dis- 
course has so much the character of a living whole, that, although much 
that was spoken on other occasions may perhaps be mixed up with it, it is 
scarcely possible to disjoin such passages from those that are essentially 
original, Ewald thinks that the discourse is made up of passages that were 
probably original, though uttered on very different occasions ; Holtzmann 
has recourse to the hypothesis that the evangelist has derived his account 
from a supposed special source, the same as that on which ch. v. is based ; 
in answer to the latter, see Weiss, 1864, p. 114. Observe that the 6,0 are 
mentioned first, because the first part of the discourse on to ver. 7 is 
directed to them, then the pafjrai are addressed in vv. 8-12, whereupon in 
ver. 13 ff. we have the withering apostrophe to the Pharisees who were 
present, and that for the purpose of warning the éy/o and the pafyrai to 
beware of them ; and finally, the concluding passage, ver. 37 ff., containing 
the pathetic exclamation over Jerusalem. The glance, the gesture, the atti- 
tude, the matter and the language, were such that there could be no doubt 
who were immediately aimed at in the various sections of the discourse. 
We may imagine the scene in the temple to have been as follows : in the 
Soreground, Jesus with His disciples ; a little farther off, the 6yAo: ; more in 
the background, the Pharisees, who in xxii. 46 are spoken of as having with- 
drawn. 

Ver. 2.. The phrase : ‘‘ to sit in Moses’ seat” (in the seat which Moses had 
occupied as lawgiver), is borrowed not from Ex. xviii. 13, but refers to the 
later practice of having chairs for teachers (comp. Acts xxii. 3), and is 
intended as a figurative mode of describing the functions of one who ‘‘ aets 
as a public teacher of the Mosaic law,” in discharging which functions the 
teacher may be regarded as the representative and successor of “Moses. Ac- 
cordingly, in Rabbinical writers, one who succeeds a Rabbi as the represen- 
tative of his school is described as 8D2-7y avy, ‘sitting upon his seat.’”? 
— éxatioav| have seated themselves, have assumed to themselves the duties of 
this office. In the whole of this phraseology one cannot fail to detect an 
allusion tothe pretensions and self-seeking character of the Pharisees.? 

Ver. 3. Oiv] inasmuch as they speak as teachers and interpreters of the 
Mosaic law. —révra . . . boa] Limitations of the sense, which lie outside 
the point of view marked out by the expression ‘‘ Moses’ seat,’’—as though 
Jesus had in view only the moral part of the law (Chrysostom), or contem- 
plated merely what had reference to the theocratic polity (Lange), or meant 
simply to speak comparatively (Bleek),—are in opposition to the text, and 
are of an arbitrary character, all the more so that the multitude was as- 
sumed to possess sufficient capacity for judging as to how much of the 
teaching was binding upon them, and how much was not. The words are 
addressed to the 6y20, whom Jesus had neither the power nor the wish to 


1 See Vitringa Synag. p. 165 f. 2 Comp. 2 Thess. ii. 4. 


390 THE GOSPEL OF MATTHEW. 


release from their obligations in respect to the manifest teachings of the 
law. But having a regard to the glaring inconsistency between the teaching 
and the conduct of their pharisaic instructors, and considering His own 
fundamental principle with regard to the obligatory character of the law, 
ver. 18 f., He could not have spoken otherwise than He did when He incul- 
cated upon the people the duty of complying with the words while refusing 
to imitate the conduct of those instructors. This utterance was conservative, 
as befitted the needs of the people, and unsparingly outspoken, as the 
conduct of the Pharisees deserved ; but, in opposition to both Pharisees 
and people, it guarded the holiness of the law. Observe that He is here 
speaking of the Pharisees in their special capacity as teachers of the Mosaie 
law (Augustine, Calvin, Grotius, Bengel), so that His language is at 
variance neither with xvi. 6 nor with the axiom given in xv. 13; Acts 
v. 29. — rowmoate k. Typeite (See critical notes) : aorist and present ; doit, and 
observe it constantly.’ 

Ver. 4. Comp. Luke xi. 46. —In deopetover dé (see critical notes), the dé 
introduces an instance of their Aéyovar Kai ov rovovcr Of a peculiarly oppressive 
character. — The binding (tying up into a bundle portions from the various 
elements, comp. Judith viii. 3) of heavy burdens is an expression intended 
to represent the connecting together of a number of requirements and pre- 
cepts, so that, from their accumulation, they become difficult to fulfil. — r6 
dé daxtiAw avtov, x.7.2.] but are themselves indisposed to move them even with 
their jinger, in the direction, that is, of their fulfilment. The emphasis rests 
on T@ daktbAw ; they will not move the burdens with their jinger, far less 
would they bear them upon their shoulders. 

Vv. 5-7. Comp. Luke xi. 43 f. — gvaaxrjpca, amulets, were the phan, the 
strips of parchment with passages of Scripture, viz., Deut. xi. 13-22, vi. 
4-10, Ex. xiii. 11-17, 1-11, written upon them. They were enclosed in 
small boxes, and, in accordance with Ex. xiii. 9, 16, Deut. vi. 8, xi. 18, 
worn during prayer, some on the forehead, some on the left arm next the 
heart. They were intended to remind the wearer that it was his duty to fulfil 
the law with head and heart, and, at the same time, to serve the purpose of 
protecting him from the influence of evil spirits.” — rAativover] they broaden 
their ¢vAakrajpia, i.e., they make them broader than those of others, in order 
that they may thereby become duly conspicuous. Corresponding to this is : 
peyadivover, they enlarge. On the xpaoreda, see on ix. 20. — tiv rpwrokdcoiar | 
the foremost couch at table, i.e., according to Luke xiv. 8 ff.,° the wppermost 
place on the divan, which the Greeks also regarded as the place of honor. * 
The Persians and Romans, on the other hand, looked upon the place in the 
middle as the most distinguished. The term is met with only in the synop- 
tical Gospels and the Fathers.® — fai, pa38i] °27, °31.° The reduplication 
serves to show how profound the reverence is.’ For the view that Rabbi 


1 See Kiihner, II. 1, p. 158 f. 4 Plut. Symp. p. 619 B. 

2 Joseph. Antt. iv. 8. 18; Lund, Jiid. Hei- 5 Suidas : mpwroxAucia: } mpwty Kabédpa, 
ligth., ed. Wolf, p. 898 ff. ; Keil, Arch. I. p. ® §daonadre, John i. 39; with yod paragogic. 
342 f. 7 Comp. Mark xiy. 15; Matt. vii. 21 f. 


3 Joseph. Antt. xy. 2. 4. 


CHAP. XXIII., 8-13. 391 
(like our ‘‘ Dr.) was the title used in addressing learned teachers as early as 
the time of Jesus (especially since Hillel’s time), see Lightfoot, also Pressel 
in Herzog’s Hneykl. XII. p. 471 ; Ewald, Gesch. Chr. p. 305. 

Vv. 8-12. ‘Yyeic] with which the discourse is suddenly turned to the dis- 
ciples, is placed first * for sake of emphasis, and forms a contrast to the Phar- 
isees and scribes. — pi xAnOyre| neither wish nor allow it. — rdvrec dé] so 
that no one may violate the fraternal tie on the ground of his supposed su- 
periority as a teacher.— kai rarépa, «.7.A.] The word rarépa, by being placed 
at the beginning, becomes emphatic, and so also jyav, by being separated 
from rarépa to which it belongs : And you must not call any one father of 
you upon earth, ¢.e., you must not apply the teacher’s title ‘‘ owr father’? to 
any mere man.*— Ver. 10. Neither are you to allow yourselves to be called lead- 
ers (in the scholastic sense), for the leader of you is One (see critical notes), 
the Messiah. For examples of the way in which Greek philosophers were 
addressed by their disciples, see Wetstein. —6 dé pei{ov buor, «.7.2.] But 
among you greatness is to be indicated quite otherwise than by high-sound- 
ing titles : the greater among you, i.e., he among you who would surpass the 
others in true dignity, will be your servant.* This is a saying of which Jesus 
makes very frequent use (Luke xiv. 11, xviii. 14). Comp. xx. 26 f. ; also 
the example of Jesus in the washing of the disciples’ feet, and Phil. ii. 6 f. 
—rarewod, . . . bpw6.| that is, on the occasion of the setting up of my 
kingdom. 


Remarx.—The prohibitions, ver. 8 ff., have reference to the hierarchical 
meaning and usage which were at that time associated with the titles in ques- 
tion. The teacher's titles in themselves are as legitimate and necessary as his 
functions ; but the hierarchy,in the form which it assumed in the Catholic 
church with the ‘‘holy father” at its head, was contrary to the spirit and mind 
of Jesus. Apropos of ver. 11, Calvin appropriately observes: ‘‘ Hac clausula 
ostendit, se non sophistice litigasse de vocibus, sed rem potius spectasse,’’ 
‘Jn this conclusion he shows that he has not been disputing, in a sophistical 
manner, about words, but has had regard rather to things.”’ 


Ver. 13. Here begins the direct and withering apostrophe of Jesus to His 
adversaries themselves who are still present, this part of the address consist- 
ing of seven woes, and extending to ver. 36. For the spurious ver. 14, Hiz., 
concerning the devouring of widows’ houses, see the critical remarks. The 
characteristic feature in this torrent of woes is its intense righteous indigna- 
tion, such as we meet with in the prophets of old,°—an indignation which 
abandons the objects of it as past all hope of amendment, and cuts down 
every bridge behind them. To Celsus (in Origen, ii. 76) all this sounded as 
mere empty threat and scolding. —éz7:] assigns the reason of this ovat. — 





1 In consequence of this address to the 
disciples, Holtzmann, p. 200, regards the 
whole discourse, in the form in which it 
has come down to us, as an historical im- 
possibility. Observe, however, the impas- 
sioned and lively way in which the topics 
are varied so as to suit exactly the different 


groups of which the audience was composed 
(see on ver. 1). 

248, see Buxtorf, p. 10, 2175; Ewald as 
above. 

3? Comp. Winer, p. 549 [E. T. 738]. 

4 Comp. ver. 12. 

6 Comp. Isa. y. 8, x. 1; Hab. ii. 6 ff. 


aoe THE GOSPEL OF MATTHEW. 


kdelere, K.T.A.] The approaching kingdom of the Messiah is conceived of 
under the figure of a palace, the doors of which have been thrown open in 
order that men may enter. But such is the effect of the opposition offered 
to Christ by the scribes and Pharisees, that men withhold their belief from 
the Messiah who had appeared among them, and show themselves indiffer- 
ent to the dcacocivy, necessary in order to admission into the kingdom from 
which they are consequently excluded.’ They thus shut the door of the king- 
dom in men’s faces, —ipeic yap, «.t.2.] explanatory reason. — rove eicepyou. | 
who are trying, who are endeavoring to obtain admission.?* 

Ver. 15. Instead of helping men into the Messiah’s kingdom, what con- 
temptible efforts to secure proselytes to their own way of thinking! This 
representation of pharisaic zeal is doubtless hyperbolical, though it is, at 
the same time, based upon actual journeyings for the purpose of making 
converts. * — éva] a single. —xai érav yévyta] se. rpooyduToc. — vidv yeévvyc| 
one fit for Gehenna, condemned to be punished in it.*— durAdrepov ipov] is 
commonly taken in an adverbial sense (Vulg.: duplo quain), asense in which 
it is consequently to be understood in the corresponding passage of Justin.® 
Coming as it does after vidv, it is more natural to regard it, with Valla, as 
an adjective: who is doubly more so than you are.® But it is still rendered 
doubtful whether diz/érepov is to be taken in an adverbial or adjective sense 
by a passage from Justin as above : oj dé rpoogdvror ob wdvoy ob TioTebovow, 
adda durhdérepov bpuav BAacdnuovar, ‘‘ the proselytes not only do not believe, but 
they blaspheme doubly what you yourselves do.” This passage is likewise 
unfavorable to Kypke’s interpretation : fallaciorem, which adjective would 
be of a more specific character than the context would admit of. But iv 
how far was Jesus justifiable in using the words dixdérepov tuov ? According 
to Chrysostom, Theodore of Mopsuestia, Euthymius Zigabenus : in conse- 
quence of the evil example of him who made the convert, which was such 
that *‘ex malo ethnico fit pejor Judaeus,” ‘from an evil heathen he be- 
comes a worse Jew” (Erasmus) ; according to de Wette : in consequence 
of the high estimate in which the teachers are held by their disciples, and 
because superstition and error usually appear with a twofold greater intensity 
in the taught than in the teachtrs ; according to Olshausen : because the 
converted heathen had not the advantage of enjoying the spiritual aid to be 
found in Mosaism ; according to Bleek : because it was common also to 
admit as converts those who were influenced by mere external considerations. 
According to the context (oeite) : on account of the manner in which the 
proselytes continued to be influenced and wrought upon by those who con- 
verted them, in consequence of which they were generally found to become 
more bigoted, more unloving, and more extreme than their instructors, and, 
of course, necessarily more corrupt. 


1 Comp. Luke xi. 52. 5 O. Tp. 122: viv 6€ dumAdtepov vioi yeevyys, 
2 See Bernhardy, p. 370 f. Os autos eime, yiveobe, ‘but now ye are 
3 Joseph. Anti. xx. 2.4. On Jewish pros- become doubly the children of Gehenna, as 
elytism generally, see Danz in Meuschen, He Himself said.” 
N. T. ex Talin. ill. p. 649. Wetstein’s note ® For the comparative itself, comp. App. 
on this passage. Hist. praef. 10: cxevn durdotepa tovTwy. 


4 Comp. on viii. 12; John xvii. 12. 


CHAP, XXIII., 16-28. 393 


Ver. 16. A new point, and one so peculiarly heinous that a somewhat 
larger portion of the denunciatory address is devoted to it. —év 76 vad] as 
in the Mischna we frequently meet with such expressions as: per habita- 
eulum hoe, WT PYDI. —év tO ypvog tov vaov] by the gold which belongs to the 
temple, the ornaments, the vessels, perhaps also the gold in the sacred treas- 
ury (to which latter Jerome, Maldonatus, refer). We nowhere meet with 
any example of such swearing, and the subject of Corban (xv. 5) is foreign 
to our passage (Lightfoot), inasmuch as there is no question of vows in the 
present instance, For év with ourtewv, comp. on v. 34. —owdév éorw] it (the 
oath) is nothing, is of no consequence. It is not the person swearing who is 
the subject, but a¢ dv oudon, x.7.A., form an absolute nominative, as in vii. 
24, x. 14, xiii. 12. — ddeiAec] is indebted, bound to keep the oath. 

Ver. 17 ff. Tap] Justifies the preceding epithets. — peifwr] of greater con- 
sequence, and consequently more binding, as being a more sacred object by 
which toswear. The reason of the we(Gwv lies in 6 dycacac tov ypvody, according 
to which the consecrated relation is conceived of as one between the temple 
and the gold, that has been brought about(otherwise if dy:dfwv be read) by 
the connecting of the latter with the former. — 7d ddpor] the offering (v. 
23), as laid upon the altar, it belongs to God. 

Ver. 20-22. 6iv] inference from ver. 19 ; because the greater, from which 
the less (the accessorium), as being bound up with it, derives*its sanctity, 
necessarily includes that less. —6 duécag . . . duvier] The aorist participle 
represents the thing as already in the course of being done :* he who has pro- 
ceeded to swear by the altar, swears ( present), according to the point of view 
indicated by oiy, not merely by the altar, but at the same time by all that is 
upon it as well. — Ver. 21. No longer dependent on ov ; but two other ex- 
amples of swearing are adduced independently of the former, in each of 
which even the highest of all, God Himself, is understood to be included. 
Accordingly we find the objects presented in a different relation to one 
another. Formerly the greater included the less, now the converse is the 
case. But though differing in this respect, there is in both instances a per- 
fect agreement as to the sacred and binding character of the oaths. — karo- 
kyoavtt| who made it his dwelling-place, took up his abode in it (after it was 
built).* — Ver. 224]. Comp. on v. 34. 

Ver. 23.° In accordance with certain traditional enactments,® the Phari- 
sees extended the legal prescriptions as to tithes’ so as to include even the 
most insignificant vegetable products, such as mint, anise, and cummin,*— 


1 See Wetstein and Lightfoot. 

2 Wihner, If. 1, p. 184, ad Xen. Mem. i. 1. 
18. 

3 Comp. Jas. iv. 5; Luke ii. 49. 

4 The opposite of ver. 22 occurs in Schev. 
uoth, f. xxxv. 2: ‘*‘ Quia praeter Deum, coeli 
et terrae creatorem, datur etiam ipsum 
coelum et terra, indubium esse debet, quod 
is, qui per coelum et terram jurat non per 
eum juret, qui illa creavit, sed per illas ip- 
sas creaturas,” ‘Since beside God, the 
Creator of heayen and earth, there is given 


heaven itself and the earth, it ought to be 
beyond doubt that he who swears by 
heaven and earth, swears not by Him who 
created them, but by the very creations 
themselves.” 

5 Comp. Luke xi. 39 ff. 

® Babyl. Joma, f. 1xxxiii. 2. 

7Ley. xxvii. 30; Num. xviii. 21; Deut. 
xii. 6 f., xiv. 22-27. 

8 See Lightfoot and Wetstein on this 
passage. Ewald, Alverth. p. 399. 


394 THE GOSPEL OF MATTHEW. 

ra Bapttepa tov véuov] the weightier things, i.e., the more important (graviora) 
elements of the law (comp. Acts xxv. 7), not : the things more difficult of ful- 
Jjilment (difficiliora, as Fritzsche), which interpretation is indeed grammati- 
cally admissible (1 John v. 8), but must be rejected, because, according to the 
context (see ver. 24), Jesus was comparing the important with the less im- 
portant, and most probably had in view the analogy of the praecepta gravia 
(DVN) et levia (2°) of the Jewish doctors.’—77v kpiciwv] comp. Ps. 
xxxiii. 5 ; not : righteousness (the usual interpretation), a sense in which the 
term is never used (comp. on xii. 18), but judgment, i.e., deciding for the 
right as against the wrong.? The xpioic is the practical manifestation of right- 
eousness. — tiv riorw | faithfulness.* The opposite of this is arioria, perfidia.* 
— rav7a| the Bapirepa just mentioned, not the tithing of mint, etc. (Bengel). 
— éder| oportebat.° Those were the duties which had been neglected. — py 
agiévar] scarcely so strong as the positive roujoa. Observe the contrasts : 
What you have neglected you ought to have done, and at the same time not 
have neglected what you are in the habit of doing,—the former being of par- 
amount importance ; the subordinate matter, viz. your painful attention to 
tithes, is not superseded by the higher duties, but only kept in its proper 
place. 

Ver. 24. The Jews were in the habit of straining their wine,® in order 
that there might be no possibility of their swallowing with it any unclean 
animal, however minute (Lev. xi. 42).". Figurative representation of the 
painful scrupulosity with which the law was observed. —rov kévera] a kind 
of attraction for percolando removentes muscam (that found in the wine, rov k.), 
just as in classical writers the phrase xa@a/pew ri is often used to express the 
removing of anything by cleansing. Kéver is not aworm found in sour wine 
(Bochart, Bleek), but, as always, a gnat. In its attempt to suck the wine, 
it falls in amongst it. — rv dé Kaduna. xataxiv.| proverbial expression, Ta. 
péytota O& arapatnpyTwc auaptavortec, Kuthymius Zigabenus. Observe at the 
same time that the camel is an wnelean animal, Ley. xi. 4. 

Ver. 25. But inwardly they (the cup and the plate) are jilled from extortion 
and excess (axpaciac, see critical notes). That with which they are filled, 
viz., the wine and the meat, has been obtained through extortion and excess. 
Plunder (Heb. x. 34, common in classical writers) and exorbitance have 
contributed to fill them. On yéuecy éx, see on John xii. 3. 
itive (ver. 27) would only be equivalent to 
axpaciac| a later form of axparteiac.* 


The simple gen- 
: they are full of plunder, etc. — 


Ver. 26. Kafdpicov mparov, x.t.A.| t.e., let it be your first care (xpérov, as in 
vi. 33, vil. 5, and elsewhere), to see that the wine in the cup is no longer 
procured by extortion and exorbitance. —iva yévyra, «.7.4.] not: ‘ut tum 


1 See Schoettgen, p. 183. 

2 Comp. Bengel and Paulus. 

8 Jer. v. 1; Rom. iii. 3; Gal. v. 22; and 
see on Philem. 5. 

4Wisd. xiv. 25, 
writers. 

5 See Kiihner, II. 1, p. 176 f. 

§ §wAcg., Plut. Mor. p. 692 


frequent in classical 


7 Buxtorf. Lex. Talm. p. 516. Comp. the 
liquare vinum of the Greeks and Romans; 
Mitscherlich, ad Hor. Od.i. 11.7; Hermann, 
Privatalterth. § xxvi. 17. 

8 Hom. Jl. xiv. 171, xvi. 667; Dio. Cass. 
XXXVii. 52. 

* See on 1 Cor. vii. 5. 


CHAP...XXILI.,, 27—29: 395 


recte etiam externae partes possint purgari,” Fritzsche, but with the em- 
phasis on yévyrac : in order that what you aim at may then be effected, viz., 
the purity of the outside as well,—in order that, then, the outside of the cup 
also may not merely appear to be clean through your washing of it, but may 
actually become so, by losing that impurity which, in spite of all your cleans- 
ing, still adheres to it (which it contracts, as it were, from its contents), 
simply because it is filled with that which is procured through immoral con- 
duct. The external cleansing is not declared to be unnecessary (de Wette), 
nor, again, is it intended to be regarded as the true one, which latter can 
only be brught about after the purifying of the contents has been ef- 
fected.’ That which is insisted on with xpérov is to be attended to in the 
Jirst place. 

Ver. 27 f. The graves were whitewashed with lime (xovia) every year on 
the 15th of Adar (a custom which Rabbinical writers trace to Ezek. xxxix. 
15), not for the purpose of ornamenting them, but in order to render them 
so Conspicuous as to prevent any one defiling himself (Num. xix. 16) by 
coming into contact with them. For the passages from Rabbinical writers, 
see Lightfoot, Schoettgen, and Wetstein. A kind of ornamental appearance 
was thus imparted to the graves. In Luke xi. 44, the illustration is of a to- 
tally different character. — iroxpic. x. avou.] (immorality): both as represent- 
ing their disposition. Thus, morally speaking, they were rdgo: éupuyor, 
Lucian, D. M. vi. 2. 

Ver. 29 ff. Comp. Luke xi. 47 ff. —The oixodowet of the tombs of the 
prophets and the «oowety of the sepulchres of the righteous (the Old Testa- 
ment saints, comp. ver. 85, xiii. 17; Heb. xi. 23); this preserving and or- 
namenting of the sacred tombs by those who pretended to be holy was 
accompanied with the self-righteous declaration of ver. 30.?— ei jjueOa, K. 
7.A.| not: if we had been, but : if we were (comp. on John xi. 21), if we were 
living in the time of our fathers, certainly we would not be, ete. — bore paptv- 
peite éavtoic, k.7.A.| Thus (inasmuch as you say tov ratépwv juav) you witness 
against yourselves (dative of reference, Jas. v. 3), that you are the sons, ete. 
vioi contains a twofold meaning. From trav zarép. ju., in which the Pharisees 
point to their bodily descent, Jesus likewise infers their kinship with their 
fathers in respect of character and disposition. There is a touch of sharpness 
in this pregnant force of vioi, the discourse becoming more and more impas- 
sioned. ‘‘When you thus speak of your fathers, you yourselves thereby | 
testify to your own kinship with the murderers of the prophets.” De 
Wette’s objection, that this interpretation of vioi would be incompatible 
with what is said by way of vindicating themselves at ver. 30, does not 
upply, becattse Jesus feels convinced that their character entirely belies this 
self-righteous utterance, and because He wishes to make them sensible of 
this conviction through the sting of a penetration that fearlessly searches 


1 Bengel fitly observes: “alias enim illa character, see, in general, Robinson, Pal. 
mundities externa non est mundities,” ‘‘ for II. p. 175 ff., and on the so-ealled ‘“‘tombs of 
otherwise that external cleanliness is not the prophets” still existing, p. 194. Tobler, 
cleanliness.” £ Topogr. v. Jerus. IL. p. 227 ff. 

2 On the ancient tombs of a more notable 


396 THE GOSPEL OF MATTHEW. 
their hearts and reads their thoughts. — év r@ aivare| t.e., the crime of shed- 
ding their blood.! For év, see on Gal. vi. 6. 

Ver. 32. Quite in keeping with the deepening intensity of this outburst 
of indignation is the bitter irony of the imperative mAypacate (comp. XXv. 
45), the mere permissive sense of which (Grotius, Wetstein, Kuinoel) is too 
feeble.? This filling up of the measure (of the sins) of the fathers was brought 
about by their sons (‘‘ haereditario jure,” Calvin), when they put Jesus Him- 
self as well as his messengers to death. — kai iyeic] ye also. The force of kai 
is to be sought in the fact that rAypdcare, x.r.2., is intended to indicate a 
line of conduct corresponding to and supplementing that of the fathers, and 
in regard to which the sons also must take care not to come short. 

Ver. 33. Ilac @tyyte| Conjunctive, with a deliberative force: how are you, 
judging from your present character, to escape from (see on iii. 7), etc.* 
The «pice tHe yeévv. Means the pronouncing of the sentence which condemns 
to Gehenna. The phrase judicium Gehennae is also of very frequent occur- 
rence in Rabbinical writers.* | The judgment comes when the measure is 
full? 

Ver. 34. Aca rovro] must be of substantially the same import as ozwe é267 
éo’ bude in ver. 85. Therefore, in order that ye may not escape the condem- 
nation of hell (ver. 33), behold, I send to you. . . and ye will, etc.; Kai && 
avrov is likewise dependent on did rovro. Awful unveiling of the divine 
decree. Others have interpreted as follows : 
tie Kakiac Tov ratépwv dav, ‘* wherefore ye are about to fill up the measure of 
your fathers’ wickedness” (Euthymius Zigabenus, Fritzsche), thus arbitra- 
rily disregarding what immediately precedes (ver. 33). Moreover, without 
any hint whatever in the text of Matthew, idot, éy® amooréAhw, x.7.2., has 
sometimes been taken for a quotation from some Jost apocryphal prophecy, 
éon 6 Geéc, or Some such expression, being understood ° a view borne out, least 
of all, by Luke xi. 49, which passage accounts for the unwarrantable inter- 
pretation into which Olshausen has been betrayed.” The corresponding pas- 


Ol6rt méAneTe TAnpOoal TO méTPOV 


1 On aiva in the sense of caedes, see Dor- 
vill. ad Charit. p. 427. 

2 The readings érAnpaéoate (D H, min.) and 
mAnpwoete (B* min. vss.) are nothing but 
traces of the difficulty felt in regard to the 
imperative. The former is_ preferred, 
though at the same time erroneously inter- 
preted by Wilke, Rhetor. p. 367 ; the latter, 
again, isadopted by Ewald, who regards x. 
Upets TAnpwoeTe aS also dependent on Ooze. 

3 Comp. xxvi. 54; Mark iv. 30; Hom J/.i. 
150: mas Tis Tor mpodpwv Emeoty TEeLOynTat Axa- 
tav; ‘*‘ How shall any one of the Achaeans 
hearken to thy bidding with all his heart ?”’ 

4 Sce Wetstein. 

5 Comp. 1 Thess. ii. 16. 

6 Van Hengel, Annotatio, p. 1 f., and 
Paulus, Strauss, Ewald, Weizsacker, 

7** Jesus,” he says, ‘‘is here speaking as 
the very impersonation of wisdom ; Mat- 
thew has omitted the quotation formula, 


because his object was to represent Jesus 
as the one from whom the words originally 
and directly emanate ; but the original form 
of the passage is that in which it is found in 
Luke.”’ Strauss, in Hilgenfeld’s Zeifschr. 
1863, p. 84 ff., also has recourse to the hy- 
pothesis of a lost book, belonging, as he 
thinks, to a date subsequent to the de- 
struction of Jerusalem, and written by a 
Christian, and in which the messengers in 
question are understood to he those whom 
God has been sending from the very earli- 
est times. In this Strauss, following in the 
wake of Baur. is influenced by anti-Johan- 
nine leanings. According to Ewald, a 
volume, written shortly after the death of 
the prophet Zechariah in the fifth century 
before Christ, but which is now lost, was en- 
titled 7 copia rod Yeov. The oravpwoerte, he 
thinks, was inserted by Matthew himself. 
Bleek, in the Stud. uw, Writ. 1853, p. 884, and 


CHAP eX SUL aos out 


sage in Luke has the appearance of belonging to a later date (in answer to 
Holtzmann and others). Comp. on Luke xi. 49. — éyé] is uttered not by 
God (Ewald, Scholten), but by Jesws, and that under a powerful sense of His 
Messianic dignity, and with a boldness still more emphatically manifested 
by the use of idod. Through this éyo azoorédiw, x.7.2., Jesus gives it to be 
understood that it is Himself who, in the future also, is still to be the object 
of hatred and persecution on the part of the Pharisees (comp. Acts ix. 5). 
— Tpoonrac Kk. cogovde xk. ypaupy.| by whom He means His apostles and other 
teachers (Eph. iv. 11), who, in respect of the Messianic theocracy, would 
be what the Old Testament prophets were, and the Rabbins (0°)DM) and 
scribes of a later time ought to have been, in the Jewish theocracy. For 
the last-mentioned order, comp. xili. 52. Olshausen is of opinion that the 
Old Testament prophets themselves must also have been intended to be includ- 
ed, and that arooréAAw (which represents the near and certain future as 
already present) must indicate ‘‘God’s pure and eternal present.” The sub- 
sequent futwres ought to have prevented any such construction being put 
upon the passage. For ypayupu., comp. xiii. 52. —xai é avrév] ob ravtec (Hu- 
thymius Zigabenus), but more emphatic than if we had had cide besides : 
and from their ranks ye will murder, ete., so that the actions are conceived 
of absolutely.’ The same words are solemnly repeated immediately after. — 
Kai oravpocete| and among other ways of putting them to death, will crucify 
them, i.e., through the Romans, for crucifixion was a Roman punishment. 
As a historical case in point, one might quote (besides that of Peter) the 
crucifixion of Simeon, a brother of Jesus, recorded by Eusebius, H. Z. iii. 
32. The meagreness, however, of the history of the apostolic age must be 
taken into account, though it must not be asserted that in cravpdcere Jesus 
was referring to His own case (Grotius, Fritzsche, Olshausen, Lange). He 
certainly speaks with reference to the third class of divine messengers, the 
class whom He is now sending (Calov.), but not from the standpoint of His 
eternal, ideal existence (Olshausen), nor in the name of God (Grotius), and 
then, again, from the standpoint of His personal manifestation in time (Ols- 
hausen), fancies for which there is no foundation either in Luke xi. 49 or in 
the text itself. Jesus does not contemplate His own execution in what is 
said at ver. 32. — év raic¢ ovvaywy.] x. 17. — ard rédewe cig rbd] X. 23.7 

Ver. 35. “Owe 2A, x.7.2.] Teleology of the divine decree : in order that 
all the righteous (innocent) blood* may come upon you, t.e., the punishment for 
shedding it. Comp. xxvii. 25, The scribes and Pharisees are regarded as 
the representatives of the people, and for whom, as their leaders, they are 
held responsible. — aiua| ‘‘ter hoe dicitur uno hoc versu, magna vi,”’ ‘‘ three 
times this word is spoken in this one verse, with great force,” Bengel. 
And it is d/cavov, because it contains the life (see on Acts xv. 20).* — éxyuvd- 
uevov| present, conceived of asa thing going on in the present.® A vivid 


in his commentary, agrees inthe main with another.” 


Ewald. 3 Jonah i. 14; Joel iii. 19; Ps. xciv. 21; 1 
1 Winer, p. 552 [E. T. 743]. Mace. i. 37. 
2 Comp. Xen. Anab. v. 4. 31: eis thy érépay 4 Comp. Delitzsch, Psych. p. 242. 


ek TNS €TEpas TOAEws, ‘‘from one town into © Wiihner, II. 1, p. 116. 


398 THE GOSPEL OF MATTHEW. 

picture, in which we seem to see the blood still actually flowing.’— én 
the yye| according to the canonical narrative (see below). — Zayapiov vii 
Bapayiov| refers to 2 Chron. xxiv. 20, where Zechariah, son of Jehoiada, 
is said to have been stoned to death by order of King Joash, év aiiq oixov 
kupiov.” The detail contained in peraét, x.7.A., renders the narrative more 
precise, and serves to emphasize the atrocious character of a deed perpe- 
trated, as this was, on so sacred a spot. 
ment of the books in the Hebrew Canon, Genesis stood at the begin- 
ning and 2 Chronicles at the end, and since fae series here indicated opens 
with the case of Abel (Gen. iv. 10; Heb. xi. 4), so this (2 Chron. 
xxiv. 20) is regarded as the last instance of the murder of a prophet, 
although, chronologically, that of Urijah (Jer. xxvi. 23) belongs to a more 
recent date. The Rabbinical writers likewise point to the murder of 
this Zacharias as one of a peculiarly deplorable nature.* And how ad- 
mirably appropriate to the scope of this passage are the words of the 
dying Zechariah : WIT) TIT ¥Y, 2 with Gen. 
iv. 10! If this latter is the Zacharias referred to in the text, then, inasmuch 
as the assumption that his father had two names‘ is no less arbitrary than 
the supposition that vioi Bapay. is a gloss (Wassenbergh, Kuinoel), there 
must, in any case, be some mistake in the quoting of the father’s name (de 
Wette, Bleek, Baumgarten-Crusius). It is probable that Jesus Himself did 
not mention the father’s name at all (Luke xi. 51), and that it was intro- 
duced into the text from oral tradition, into which an error had crept from 
confounding the person here in question with the better known prophet of 
the same name, and whose father was called Barachias (Zech. i. 1).° This 
tradition was followed by Matthew ; but in the Gospel of the Hebrews the 
wrong name was carefully avoided, and the correct one, viz., Jehoiada, 
inserted instead. According to others, the person referred to is that 
Zacharias who was murdered at the commencement of the Jewish war, and 
whose death is thus recorded by Joseph. Bell. iv. 6,4 : dbo 08 tév roAunpora- 
Tov (CyAwtav) mpoorecdbvrec év peo~ TH lep@ diagdOeipover TOY Layapiav vidov 
Tov Bapotyou.’ It is the opinion of Hug that Jesus, as speaking pro- 
phetically, made use of the future tense, but that Matthew substituted a 
past tense instead, because when this Gospel was written the murder had 
already been committed (after the conquest of Gamala). Keim likewise 
finds in this a hint as to the date of the composition of Matthew. But 
apart from the fact that the names Barachias and Baruch are not one and 
the same, and that the reading in the passage just quoted from Josephus 
is doubtful (Var. Bapoxaiov), the alleged substitution of the aorist for 
the future would be so flagrantly preposterous, that a careful writer 
could scarcely be expected to do anything of the sort.* Finally, we 


Since, according to the arrange- 


Chron. xxiv. 22 ; comp. 


1On the later form see Lobeck, ad Phryn. 
p. 726. 

2 Comp. Joseph. Avntt. ix. 8. 3. 

3 See Targum Lam. ii. 20; Lightfoot on 
our passage. 

4 Scholion in Matthaei, Chrysostom, Lu- 
ther, Beza, Grotius, Elsner, Kanne, Jidl. 


Unters. II. p. 198 ff. 

® Comp. Holtzmann, p. 404. 

®° Hilgenfeld, VW. 7. extra can. IV. p. 17, 11. 

7So Hammond, Krebs, Hug, Credner, 
Hinl. I. p. 207, Gfrérer, Baur, Keim. 

8 As against this whole hypothesis, see 
besides Theile in Winer’s neu. krit. Journ. 


CHAP. XXIII., 36-88. o99 


may mention, only for the sake of recording them, the ancient opinions 
(in Chrysostom and Theophylact) that the Zacharias referred to in our 
passage was either the minor prophet of that name, or the father of the 
Baptist (see Protevang. Jac. 23). The latter view is that of Origen, Basil, 
Gregory of Nyssa, Theophylact, and several others among the Fathers.’ — 
petasv Tov vaovd, k.T.A.| between the temple proper and the altar of burnt- 
offerings in the priests’ court. 

Ver. 36. "Héec| Put first for sake of emphasis : shall come, shall inevitably 
come upon, etc. Comp. ix. 15, xxvii. 49. — ravra ravra] according to the 
context : all this shedding of blood, i.e., the punishment for it. — éxi 7. yeveav 
tavt.| See on xi. 16 ; upon this generation, which was destined to be over- 
taken by the destruction of Jerusalem and the judgments connected with 
the second coming (ver. 38 f.), comp. on xxiv. 34. 

Ver. 37 ff. After denouncing all those woes against the scribes and 
Pharisees, the departing Redeemer, Jooking with sad eye into the future, 
sets the holy city also—which He sees hastening to its destruction under 
the false guidance of those leaders—in a living connection with the tragic 
contents of ver. 34 ff., but in such a way that his parting words are no 
longer denunciations of woe, but the deep wail of a heart wounded, because 
its love has been despised.. Thus ver. 87 ff. forms an appropriate conclu- 
sion to the whole drama of the discourse. Luke xiii. 34 introduces the 
words in a historical connection entirely different. — The repetition of the 
name of Jerusalem is here éu@avrixdc éAsoc, Euthymius Zigabenus. — aroxrei- 
vovca, «.T.2.| The present participles denote the usual conduct : the murderess, 
the killer with stones. —xpoc aitiy] to her ; because the attributive participial 
clause from being in the nominative places the subject addressed under the 
point of view of the third person, and only then proceeds (woodkig . . . TéKva 
cov) with the vocative of address in ‘Iepovcadju.? With Beza and Fritzsche, 
aityv might be read and taken as equivalent to.ceavriv ; but ait#v is to be 
preferred, for this reason, that there is here no such special emphasis as to 
call for the use of the reflective pronoun (we should expect simply rpéc ce 
in that case), — roduc, x.7.A.] The literal meaning of which is : ‘‘ How 
often I have wished to take thy citizens under my loving protection as 
Messiah !”* (Rabbinical writers speak of the Shechinah as gathering the 
proselytes under its wings.) Observe éavurj¢ : her own chickens. Such was 
the dove that I felt toward you. On the form voc. for veooc., see Lobeck, 
ad Phryn. p. 206. oix teAncate] se. exiovvayOjvac ; they refused (Niigelsbach 
on J7. iii. 289 ; Baeumlein, Partik. p. 278), namely, to have faith in him as 
the Messiah, and consequently the blame rested with themselves. 'This refusal 
was their actual «piva, John ix. 389. 

Ver. 88 f. ’Agieras byiv 6 olxoc bu.) your house is abandoned to your own 
disposal; the time for divine help and protection for your city is now 


II. p. 405 ff., Kuhn in the Jahrb. d. Theol. I. 2 Comp. Lukei. 45; Job xviii. 4; Isa. xxii. 
p. 350 ff. 16. 
1See Thilo, Praef. p. lxiv. f.; and re- 3 For the metaphor, comp. Eurip. Zee. 


cently of Miillerin the Stud. u. Krit, 1841, Fur.%0 f.,and the passages in Wetstein, 
p. 673 ff. Schoettgen, p. 208. 


400 THE GOSPEL OF MATTHEW. 

gone by !! The present implies the tragic and decisive witimatum. The 
épnsoc, Which is to be retained on critical grounds (see critical notes), 
intimates what is to be the jinal result of this abandonment, viz., the de- 
struction of Jerusalem (épyuwow, xxiv. 45 ; Luke xxi. 20) ; on the pro- 
leptic use of the adjective, comp. on xii. 13, and Kithner, IT. 1, p. 236. Ac- 
cording to the context, 6 oixo¢ iuov can only mean ‘Tepovoadju, ver. 37 
(Bleek), in which their children dwell; not the city and the country at large 
(de Wette and earlier expositors, in accordance with Ps. Ixix. 25), nor the 
whole body of the Jewish people (Keim), nor the temple.” — Ver. 89 proceeds 
to account for this ddiera: ipiv, x.r.A. Were your city any longer to be 
shielded by the divine protection, I would still linger among you ; but I 
now leave you, and it is certain that henceforth (His presence among them, 
as He knows, being about to cease with His death, comp. xxvi. 64) you 
will not see me again until my second coming (not : in the destruction of 
Jerusalem, Wetstein), when I shall appear in the glory of the Messiah, and 
when, at my approach, you will have saluted (ciryre, dixeritis) me, whom 
you have been rejecting, with the Messianic confession evAcynuévoc, k.T.A. 
(xxi. 9). This is not to be understood of the conversion of Israel (Rom. Xi. 5 
Rey. xi.) in its development down to the second coming (Bengel, Késtlin, 
Hofmann, Lange, Schegg, Auberlen, Ewald); for Jesus is addressing 
Jerusalem, and threatening it with the withdrawal of God’s superintending 
eare, and that wntil the second appearing of Messiah (6 épyéuevoc), and hence 
He cannot have had in view an intervening perdvora and regeneration of the 
city. No; the abandonment of the city on the part of God, which Jesus 
here announces, is ultimately to lead to her destruction ; and then, at His 
second appearing, which will follow immediately upon the ruin of the city 
(xxiv. 29), His obstinate enemics will be constrained to join in the loyal 
greeting with which the Messiah will be welcomed (xxi. 9), for the man- 
ifestation of His glory will sweep away all doubt and opposition, and 
force them at last to acknowledge and confess Him to be their Deliverer. 
A truly tragic feature at the close of this moving address in which 
Jesus bids farewell to Jerusalem, not with a hope, but with the certainty 
of ultimate, though sorrowful, victory.2 Wieseler, p. 322, despairing 
of making sense of the passage, has gone the length of maintaining that 
some ancient reader of Matthew has inserted it from Luke. This view might 
seem, no doubt, to be favored by the use, in the present instance, of 
‘Tepovoasgu, ver. 87, the form in which the word regularly appears in Luke, 
and for which, on every other occasion, Matthew has ‘IepocdéaAvya ; but it 


1 For the meaning, comp. Joseph. Antt. 
2.9.55 oFs OY 

2 Jerome, Theophylact, Euthymius Ziga- 
benus, Calvin, Olearius, Wolf, Michaelis, 
Kuinoel, Neander, Baumeister in Klaiber’s 
Stud. 11. p. 67 f.; Hofmann, Schriftbew- Il. 2, 
p. 92; Ewald. 

3 Euthymius Zigabenus very justly ob- 
serves in connection with é€ws ay eimnte, 


K.T.A.2 Kal TOTE TOUTO ElmWoLW; EKOVTES pmeéeV 


ovdémote: akovTes O& KaTA TOV KaLpov THs SevTépas 
avTov Tapovoias, oTav H&er peta Suvvadmews Kal 
d0€ns TOAARS, OTav OvdEeY adToLs OhEAos THS EmLy- 
vwcews, “and when would they say this? 
willingly never, but unwillingly at the 
period of His second advent, when He shall 
come with power and great glory, when 
there will be no profitto them in acknowl- 
edging Him.” Comp. Theophylact, Cal- 
vin, Gerhard, Calovius. 


CHAP. XXIII., 38, 39. 401 


might very easily happen that, in connection with an utterance by Jesus of 
so remarkable and special a nature, the form given to the name of the city 
in the fatal words addressed to her would become so stereotyped in the 
Greek version of the evangelic tradition, that here, in particular, the Greek 
translator of Matthew would make a point of not altering the form ‘‘‘Tepov- 
ca/iju,” which had come to acquire so fixed a character as part of the utter- 
ance before us. 


Remarxk.—It is fair to assume that Christ’s exclamation over Jerusalem pre- 
supposes that the capital had repeatedly been the scene of His ministrations, 
which coincides with the visits on festival occasions recorded by John. Comp. 
Acts x. 39, and see Holtzmann, p. 440 f. ; Weizsiicker, p. 310. Those who deny 
this (among them being Hilgenfeld, Keim) must assume, with Eusebius in the 
Theophan. (Nova bibl. patr. iv. 127), that by the children of Jerusalem are meant 
the Jews in general, inasmuch as the capital formed the centre of the nation; 
comp. Gal, iv. 25. Baur himself (p. 127) cannot help seeing the far-fetched 
character of this latter supposition, and consequently has recourse to the un- 
warrantable view that we have before us the words of a prophet speaking in 
the name of God,—words which were first put into the mouth of Jesus in their 
present form, so that, when they were uttered, toodx.c would be intended to 
refer to the whole series of prophets and messengers, who had come in God’s 
name ; just as Origen had already referred them to Moses and the prophets as 
well, in whom Christ was supposed to have been substantially present ; comp. 
Strauss in Hilgenfeld’s Zeitschr. 1863, p. 90. 


402 THE GOSPEL OF MATTHEW. 


CHAPIER XXIV: 


Ver. 2. For 6 dé 'Ijcoi¢ we should read, with Lachm. and Tisch., 6 dé azoxpi- 
§eic, following important evidence. The insertion of the subject along with 
the participle led to the omission of the latter. — od BAémete] Fritzsche : 
Brérere, following D L X, min. vss. and Fathers. Ancient (It. Vulg.) correction 
for sake of the sense, after Mark xiii. 2.— For rdvra ravta we should read, 
with Lachm. Fritzsche, Tisch. 8, ravta ravra, in accordance with a preponder- 
ance of evidence. — 6¢ od] Elz. : 6¢ od 7, against decisive evidence. Mechani- 
cal repetition of the preceding oi 7. — Ver. 3. t7¢ ovvteA.] The article is want- 
ing in B C L 8, min. Cyr. (in the present instance), and has been correctly 
deleted by Lachm. and Tisch. Superfluous addition. — Ver. 6. cav7a] is want- 
ing, no doubt, in B DL &, min. vss., and has been deleted by Lachm. and 
Tisch. 8, but it had been omitted in conformity with Mark xiii. 7; while in 
some of the witnesses we find Taira, in accordance with Luke xxi. 9, and in 
some others, again, taévta raita (Fritzsche: tavra muvta). The various correc- 
tions were occasioned by the unlimited character of ravta. — Ver. 7. kai Aoiuoi] 
is wanting in B D E* &, min. Cant. Ver. Vere. Corb. 2, Hilar. Arnob. Deleted 
by Lachm. and Tisch. 8. Other witnesses reverse the order of the words, which 
is strongly favored by Luke. All the more are they to be regarded as inserted 
from Luke xxi. 11. — Ver. 9. Elz. has é6v6v. But the reading tov éfvav has a 
decided preponderance of evidence in its favor ; and then how easily might Trav 
be overlooked after tavrwv! The omission of tov é0vev in C, min. Chrys. was 
with a view to conformity with Mark and Luke. —Ver. 15. éordc] Fritzsche, 
Lachm. and Tisch. : éo76c, following a preponderance of ms, authority (includ- 
ing B* 8), and correctly. The transcribers have contracted into éotéc what, 
strictly speaking, should be spelt écradc, though the spelling éordc¢ is also met 
with in classical writers. — Ver. 16. éxi] Lachm. : eic, following B D A, min. 
Fathers. Adopted from Mark xiii. 14 ; Luke xxi. 21. Mark is likewise the 
source of the reading xatafatw, ver. 17, in B DL Z &, min. Or. Caes. Isid. 
Chrys., and which Fritzsche, Lachm. Tisch. 8 have adopted. — For tz éx, as in 
Elz., read, with Lachm. and Tisch., ra éx, following decisive evidence. — Ver. 
18. Ta ivdtia] 70 ivariov, no doubt, has weighty evidence in its favor, and is 
approved by Griesb. and adopted by Lachm. and Tisch. 8, but it is taken from 
Mark xiii. 16. — Ver. 20. The simple ca@atu (Elz. ; évcaBB.) is supported by 
decisive evidence. — Ver. 23. miotevonre] Lachm.: rorevere, following only B* 
Or. Taken from Mark xiii. 21. — Ver24. For zAavica Tisch. 8 has rAavyfzvat, 
following D &, codd. of It. Or.i"t- and several other Fathers. The reading of 
the Received text is, no doubt, supported by preponderating evidence ; but how 
readily might the active have been substituted for the passive in conformity 
with vy. 5, 11 !—Ver. 27. cai is, with Scholz, Lachm. Tisch., to be deleted after 
éoral, in accordance with decisive evidence. Inserted in conformity with the 
usual mode of expression ; in vv. 37, 39 we should likewise delete the xa/, 
which Tisch. 8 retains in ver. 39. — Ver. 28. yap] deleted by Lachm. and Tisch. 


CHAP. XXIV. 403 


8, following B D L &, min, vss. and Fathers. Correctly. A common insertion 
of the connecting particle. This is more probable than the supposition that a 
fastidious logic took exception to the kind of connection. — Ver. 30. rére xéw.] 
The omission of rére by Tisch. 8 is without adequate evidence, having among 
the uncials only that of &*. Had the words been inserted in accordance with 
Mark xiii. 26, Luke xxi. 27, they would have been placed before éyovra:.— Ver. 
31. gwv7¢] is not found in L A &, min. Copt. Syr. and several Fathers. Being 
awkward and superfluous, it was in some cases omitted altogether, in others 
(Syr.iet: Aeth., also Syr.?., though with an asterisk at dav.) placed before cadr., 
and sometimes it was conjoined with car. by inserting «ai after this latter (D, 
min. Vulg. It. Hilar. Aug. Jer.).— For the second dkpwv Lachm. has rév axp., 
following only B, 1, 13, 69. — Ver 34. After Aéya iuiv, Lachm., in accordance 
with B D F L, min. It. Vulg. Or., inserts 67, which, however, may readily have 
crept in from Mark xiii. 30; Luke xxi. 32. — Ver. 35.! Griesb. and the more 
recent editors (with the exception, however, of Matth. and Scholz) have adopted 
mapedcvoetat in preference to the rapeAetoovra: of Elz., following B D L, min. 
Fathers. The plural is taken from Mark xiii. 31; Luke xxi. 33.— Ver. 36. 
Before dpac Elz. has ric, which, though defended by Schulz, is condemned by 
decisive evidence. Superfluous addition. Comp. ver. 3. — After oipavav 
Lachm, and Tisch. 8 have ovd? 6 vidc, in accordance with B D 8, min. codd. of 
It. Syr.ie™- Aeth. Arm. Chrys. Or.i=*: Hil. Ambr., ete. For a detailed examination 
of the evidence, see Tisch. The words are an ancient interpolation from Mark 
xili. 32. Had it been the case that they originally formed part of our passage, 
but were deleted for dogmatic reasons, it is certain that, having regard to the 
christological importance sometimes ascribed to them (‘‘gaudet Arius et 
Eunomius, quasi ignorantia magistri,” Jerome), they would have been expunged 
from Mark as well. The interpolation was all the more likely to take place in 
the case of Matthew, from its serving to explain ~évec (which latter does not 
occur in Mark). — Elz. Scholz, and Tisch. 7 have pov after zatyp. Defended 
by Schulz, though deleted by Griesb. Lachm. Tisch. 8. It is likewise adopted 
by Fritzsche, who, however, deletes the following j6voc, which is wanting only in 
Sahid. In deference to the ordinary usage in Matthew (vii. 21, x. 32 f., ete.), 
ov should be restored. It is wanting, no doubt, in B DLA II §&, min. vss. 
and Fathers, but it may readily enough have been omitted in consequence of 
the MO immediately following it, all the more that it is not found in Mark, — 
Ver. 37. dé] Lachm. : yap, following BD TI, vss. Fathers. An exegetical gloss. 
— Ver. 38. rai¢ zpé] is deleted by Fritzsche and Tisch. 7, in accordance with 
some few, and these, too, inadequate witnesses (Origen, however). Coming 
as it does after ver. 37, it had been mechanically omitted ; it can scarcely 
have been inserted as the result of reflection. Before raic Lachm. has éxeivaic, 
following B D (which latter omits raic), codd. of It.,—a reading which ought 
to be adopted, all the more because in itself it is not indispensable, and be- 
cause it was very apt to be omitted, in consequence of the similarity in the 
termination of the words. — For éxyayitovrec read yauifovtec, with Tisch. 8, 
following D 8, 33, Chrys. ; comp. on xxii. 30.— Ver. 40. For 6 eic Fritzsche, 
Lachm. and Tisch. have simply ele in both instances, following B DIL 8, 
min, (A and Chrys, Jeave out the article only in the first case). For sake of 


1 The omission of this whole verse by &*, nor by later evidence, is simply an error of 
an omission sanctioned neither by earlier the transcriber. 


404 THE GOSPEL OF MATTHEW. 

uniformity with ver. 41. — Ver. 41. pvAdv] Lachm. and Tisch. : ido, follow- 
ing preponderating evidence ; the reading of the Received text is intended to 
be more precise. — Ver. 42. dpa] Lachm. and Tisch.: jurpa. So B DIAS, 
min. Ir. Cyr. Ath. Hilar. and vss. The reading of the Received text is by way 
of being more definite. Comp. ver. 44. — Ver. 45. airov after kvpio¢ is wanting 
in important witnesses (deleted by Lachm. and Tisch. 8), but it must have 
been left out to conform with Luke xii. 42. — Geparseiac] Lachm. and Tisch. : 
oixeteiac, following B I L A, min. Correctly; from the word not occur- 
ring elsewhere in the New Testament, it would be explained by the gloss 
oixiac (8, min, Ephr. Bas. Chrys.), or at other times by Gepav. — For the follow- 
ing didéva read dovva, with Griesb, Fritzsche, Lachm, Tisch., in accordance 
with preponderating evidence, — Ver, 46. xocovvta obrw¢o] Lachm. and Tisch. : 
ottwe mocowvra, following BC DIL &, min. Vulg. It. Aeth. Ir. Hil. The read- 
ing of the Received text is from Luke xii. 48. — Ver. 48. The order jov 6 xipiog 
is favored by a preponderance of evidence, and, with Lachm. and Tisch., 
ought to be preferred. Lachm. and Tisch. 8 omit éA@eiv, though on some- 
what weaker evidence ; éA%civ is further confirmed by the reading épyec@a: in min. 
Or. Bas., which is taken from Luke xii. 45. The infinitive not being indis- 
pensable (comp, xxv. 5), was passed over. — Ver. 49, airov, which is wanting in 
Elz. (and Tisch. 7), has been restored by Griesb, Lachm. and Tisch. 8, in 
accordance with preponderating evidence. Similarly with regard to éo4in dé 
Kal wivy (for éofiew d& Kal mivewy in Elz.), which has decisive evidence in 
its favor, and is an altered form of Luke xii. 45. 

Ver. 1.1 The parallel passages are Mark xiii., Luke xxi. Luke, however, 
in accordance with his own independent way of treating his narrative, does 
not merely omit many particulars and put somewhat differently many of 
those which he records (as is likewise the case with Mark), but he introduces 
not a few in a different, and that an earlier historical connection (ch. xil. 
17). But this would not justify us, as Luther, Schleiermacher, Neander, 
Hase suppose, in using Luke’s narrative for correcting Matthew,* to whom, 
as the author of the collection of our Lord’s sayings, precedence in point of 
authority is due. It must be admitted, however, that it is precisely the 
eschatological discourses, more than any others, in regard to which it is 
impossible to determine how many modifications of their original form may 
have taken place? under the influence of the ideas and expectations of the 


10On the following discourse generally, 
see: Dorner, de orat. Chr. eschatologica, 
1844; R. Hofmann, Wiederkunft Chr. u. Zei- 
chen d. Menschensohnes, 1850 ; Hebart, d. zweite 
sichtb. Zuk. Chr. 1850: Scherer in the Strassb. 
Beitr. 1851, II. p. 83 ff.; E. J. Meyer, -krit. 
Comment. zu a. eschatolog. Rede Matth. xxiv., 
xxv., L., 1857; Cremer, d. eschatolog. fede 
Matth. xxiv., xxv., 1860; Luthardt, Lehre v. 
d. letzten Dingen, 1861; Hoelemann, Bibelstu- 
dien, 1861; II. p. 129 ff.; Auberlen in the 
Stud. u. Krit. 1862, p. 213 ff.; Pfleiderer in 
the Jahrb. f. D. Theol. 1868, p. 134 ff.; Kien- 
len, ibid. 1869, p. 706 ff., and Commentaire sur 
Vapocalypse, 1870, p. 1 ff. ; Wittichen, Zdee d. 
Reiches, Gottes, 1872, p. 219 ff. ; Weissenbach, 


ad. Wiederkunfts-gedanke Jesu, 1873, p. 69 ff., 
comp. his Jeswin regno coel. dignitas, 1868, 
p. 79 ff.; Colani, Jésus Christ et les croyances 
messian. de son temps, ed. 2, 1864, p. 204 fi. 

2Strauss, Il. p. 837 f.; Holtzmann, p. 
200 ff. 

3 Although the contents of the discourse 
itself, as well as the earlier date of the first 
two Gospels generally, decidedly forbid the 
supposition that it was not composed till 
after the destruction of Jerusalem,and that, 
consequently, it assumes this latter to have 
already taken place (Credner, Baur, Kost- 
lin, Hilgenfeld, Volkmar). If this supposi- 
tion were correct, the discourse would have 
to be regarded as a late product of the 


CHAP. XXIV., 2. 405 
apostolic age, although the shape in which they appeared first of all was 
given to them, not by Mark,’ but by Matthew in his collection of the say- 
ings of our Lord. This is to be conceded without any hesitation. At the 
same time, however, we must as readily allow that the discourse is char- 
acterized by all the unity and consecutiveness of a skilful piece of compo- 
sition, and allow it all the more that any attempt to distinguish accurately 
between the original elements and those that are not original (Keim) only, 
leads to great uncertainty and diversity of opinion in detail. But the idea 
that portions of a Jewish (Weizsiicker) or Judaeo-Christian (Pfleiderer, Colani, 
Keim, Weissenbach) apocalyptic writing have been mixed up with the utter- 
ances of Jesus, appears not only unwarrantable in itself, but irreconcilable 
with the early date of the first two Gospels, especially in their relation to the 
collection of our Lord’s sayings (Aoyia).— é£eA06v] from the temple, xxi. 23. — 
éxopeveTo ard Tov iepov| He went away from the temple, withdrew to some distance 
from it.? For this interpretation we require neither a hyperbaton (Fritzsche, 
de Wette), according to which az6 r. iepov would belong to é&e70dv,° nor the 
accentuation d7o.*—Trd¢ oixodoud¢g tov iepov}| not merely rov vaov, but the 
whole of the buildings connected with the temple, all of which, with the vad¢ 
and the porches and the courts, constituted the ispév.° The magnificent 
structures ° were not then finished as yet, see on John ii. 21. — Even Chry- 
sostom, Erasmus, and Bengel did not fail to perceive that what led the dis- 
ciples to direct the attention of Jesus to the temple-buildings was the 
announcement contained in xxiii, 38, which, though it did not refer 
exclusively to the temple, necessarily encluded the fate of this latter as well. 
This the disciples could not but notice ; and so, as they looked back and 
beheld the splendors of the entire sacred edifice, they could not help asking 
Jesus further to explain Himself, which He does at once in ver. 2, and in 
terms corresponding with what He had announced in xxiii. 38. 

Ver. 2. Ov" BAérere taita ravta (see critical notes) does not mean : ‘‘do 
not gaze so much at all this’ (Paulus), in which case 7, at least, would be 
required ; nor: ‘‘are you not astonished at all this magnificence” (de Wette, 
following Chrysostom) ? which would be to import a different meaning 
into the simple B2érere 3 but : ye see not all this, by which, of course, Jesus 
does not intend the mere temple-buildings in themselves considered, but the 
doom which awaits all those splendid edifices,—a doom which He at once pro- 


apostolic age, and therefore asa vaticinium 
post eventum. Further, the eschatological 
views of the apostolical Epistles, though 
they presuppose corresponding teaching on 
the part of Jesus, by no means imply any 
knowledge of the specific discourses in ch. 
xxiv., xxy. (in answer to E. J. Meyer, p. 50 
i.) 

1 Holtzmann, p. 95; see, on the other 
hand, Weiss. 

2 Comp. xxv. 41. 

3 This supposition, indeed, has likewise 
led to the transposition : aro (Lachm. : éx. 
following B) tod iepod emopevero (BD LAN, 


min. vss. Fathers), which order is adopted 
by Tisch. 8. 

4 Bornemann in the Stud. u. Krit. 1843, 
p. 108 f. 

5 Comp. on iy. 5. 

6 Joseph. Bell. v. 5. 6, vi. 4. 6, 8; 
Fiist. V. 8. 12. 

7 Among modern critics, Kuinoel, Fritz- 
sche, Baumgarten-Crusius, Ewald, Bleek, 
have decided in favor of omitting ov, as 
approved by Griesbach and Schulz. Among 
those belonging to an earlier date, Casaubon 
says distinctly, with regard to the negative: 
“hic locum non potest habere.” 


Tae. 


406 THE GOSPEL OF MATTHEW. 


ceedsto reveal. Instead of having an eye to perceive all this, to them every- 
thing looked so magnificent ; they were {Aérovrec ob BAérovTec (Xili. 13), so 
that they were incapable of seeing the true state of matters as regarded the 
temple ; it was hid from their eyes. The more vividly Jesus Himself fore- 
saw the coming ruin ; the more distinct the terms in which He had just 
been pointing to it, xxiii. 88 ; the deeper the emotion with which He had 
taken that touching farewell of the temple ; the fuller, moreover, the 
acquaintance which the disciples must have had with the prophecy in Dan. 
ix.; and the greater the perplexity with which, as the Lord was aware, they 
continued to regard His utterance about the temple, xxiii. 88 ; somuch the 
more intelligible is this introductory passage, in which Jesus seeks to 
withdraw their attention from what presents itself to the mere outward 
vision, and open their eyes in order that as py B2érovtec BAéxwou (John ix, 
39). Further, it is better to take this pregnant uttterance in an affirmative 
rather than than in an interrogative sense, as is usually done, because there 
is no preceding assertion on the part of the disciples to which the question 
of surprise might be said to correspond. Grulich’ places the emphasis on 
révra : ‘‘videtis quidem raira, sed non videtis ravta ravta (nimirum templi 
desolationem, etc.).” So also Hoelemann. This is improbable, if for no 
other reason than the ordinary usage as regards tavta ravra, which has no 
such refinement of meaning anywhere else. Jesus would simply have said : 
ov mavta BAérere. Bornemann, as above, after other attempts at explanation, 
finds it simplest to interpret as follows: ye see not; of all this, believe me, 
not one stone will remain upon another, etc. He thinks that what Jesus meant 
to say was : tavta ravta Katadriyjcera, Dut that He interrupts Himself in 
order to introduce the asseveration aujv Aéyw buiv, and so breaks the construc- 
tion. That Jesus, however, would not merely have broken the construc- 
tion, but still more would have used the words ov py adeO without any logi- 
cal reference to ravra zavra, is clearly indicated by dde, which therefore con- 
tradicts the explanation just given. — éc ov xaradv6.*| Nota stone will be 
left upon another without being thrown down. Occurring as it does in 
a prophetical utterance, this hyperbolical language should not be strained in 
the least, and certainly it ought not to be made use of for the purpose of 
disproving the genuineness of the passage. ° 

Ver. 3. Kaz’ idiav] unaccompanied by any but such as belonged to the 
number of the Twelve, because they were going to ask Him to favor them 
with a secret revelation. Differently Mark xiii. 8.—raira] those disas- 
trous events of ver. 2. — kai Ti Td onueiov, x.t.A.] The disciples assume, as 
matter of course, that immediately after the destruction in question the 
Loyd will appear, in accordance with what is said xxiii. 89, for the purpose 
of setting up his kingdom, and that with this the current (the pre-Mes- 
sianic) era of the world’s history will come to an end. Consequently they 
wish to know, in the second place (for there are only two questions, not three, 


1 De loci Matth. xxiv. 1,2, interpret., 1839. p. 190 ff.; Weissenbach, p. 162 ff. And on 

2¥For ov, see Winer, p. 448 [E. T. 604]; account of Rev. xi. 1 ff., comp. also Weiz- 
Buttmann, p. 305 [E. T. 355]. siicker, p. 548 f. 

3 See, as against this abuse, Keim, III. 


GHAR. Sexvign 4: 407 


as Grotius, Ebrard suppose), what is to be the sign which, after the destruc- 
tion of the temple, is to precede this second coming and the end of the 
world, that by it they may be able to recognize the approach of those events. 
The above assumption, on the part of the disciples, is founded on the doc- 
trine respecting the MWDn abil dolores Messiae, derived from Hos, xiii. 
13.1 — rij¢ of¢ rapovoiac| After his repeated intimations of future suffering 
and death, the disciples could not conceive of the advent of Jesus (1 Cor. xv. 
23; 1 Thess. ii. 19; in the Gospels peculiar to Matthew) to set up His 
kingdom and make a permanent stay in any other way than as a solemn 
second coming. After his resurrection they expected the Risen One straight- 
way to set up His kingdom (Acts i. 6),—a very natural expectation when 
we bear in mind that the resurrection was an unlooked-for event ; but, after 
the ascension, their hopes were directed, in accordance with the express 
promises of Jesus, to the coming from heaven, which they believed was 
going to take place ere long, Actsi. 11, ili. 20 f., al., and the numerous 
passages in the New Testament Epistles.? Observe, too, the emphatic «je 
coming after the general expression tatvta. — kai cuvted. Tov aiwvoc| In the 
Gospels we find no trace of the millenarian ideas of the Apocalypse. The 
tov ai@voc, with the article, but not further defined, is to be understood as 
referring to the existing, the then ewrrent age of the world, 7.e., to the aiav 
ovtoc, Which is brought to a close (cvvrédera) with the second coming, inas- 
much as, with this latter event, the aidyv uéAAwv begins.* The second coming, 
the resurrection and the last judgment, fall upon the éoydr7 juépa,* which, 
as it will be the last day of the aia oiroc in general, so of the éoyatwr juepov ® 
in particular, or of the kapic éoyatoc (1 Pet. 1. 5), or of the ypdvog éayarog 
(Jude 18; 1 Pet. i. 30), which John likewise calls the éoyary dpa (1 John 
ii. 18). This concluding period, which terminates with the last day, is to 
be characterized by abounding distress and wickedness (see on Gal. i. 4). 
The article was unnecessary before cuvreteiac, seeing that it is followed by 
the genitive of specification. °® 

Ver. 4. The reply of Jesus is directed, in the first instance, to the second 
question (ri 7d onyeiov, x.r.4.), Inasmuch as He indicates, as the discourse 
advances, the things that are to precede His second coming, till, in ver. 28, 
He reaches the point which borders immediately upon the latter event (see 
ver. 29). But this answer to the second question involves, at the same time, 
an indirect answer to the first, in so far as it was possible to give this 
latter at all (for see ver. 36), and in so far as it was advisable to do so, if 
the watchfulness of the disciples was to be maintained. The discourse pro- 
ceeds in the following order down to ver. 28 : first there is a warning with 
regard to the appearing of false Messiahs (extending to ver. 5), then the an- 
nouncement of the beginning and development of the dolores Messiae on to their 
termination (vv. 6-14), and finally the hint that these latter are to end with 


1See Schoettgen, II. p. 550; Bertholdt, 4 John vi. 89, xi. 24. 

Christol. p. 43 ff. 6 Acts ii. 17; 2 Tim. iii. 1; Jas. v.3; Heb. 
2 Comp. Wittichen in the Jahrb. f. Deut- i. 2; 2 Pet. iii. 3. 

sche Theol. 1862, p. 354 ff. 6 Winer p. 118 f. [E. T. 155]. 


3 See on xiii. 39. 


408 ' THE GOSPEL OF MATTHEW. 


the destruction of the temple and the accompanying disasters (vv. 15-22), 
with a repetition of the warning against false Messiahs (vv. 23-28). 
Ebrard ' finds in vv. 4-14 the reply of Jesus to the disciples’ second question. 
He thinks that in ver. 15 Jesus passes to the first, and that in ver. 29 He 
comes back ‘‘ad onueiov tHe éavtod rapovoiac Kar’ éoyhv, t.e., ad secundae 
quaestionis partem priorem,” ‘‘to the sign of His own coming, very spe- 
cially, z.e., to the former part of their second question.” This supposition is 
simply the result of an imperious dogmatic preconception, and cannot be 
justified on any fair exegetical principle. See below. Dorner, who spirit- 
ualizes the discourse, understands vv. 4-14 as setting forth the nature of the 
gospel and its necessary development, while he regards what follows, from 
ver. 15 onward, as describing the historical ‘‘ decursum Christianae religi- 
onis ;” he thinks that Jesus desired by this means to dispel the premature 
Messianic hopes of the disciples, and make them reflect on what they must 
bear and suffer ‘‘ ut evangelium munere suo /istorico perfungi possit.” 

Vv. 4, 5. In the first place—and how appropriate and necessary, consid- 
ering the eagerness of the disciples for the second coming !---a warning 
against false Messiahs, and then ver. 6 f. the first, far off, indirect prognos- 
tics of the second advent, like the roll of the distant thunder. — émi r. ovéy. 
pov] on the strength of my name, so that they rest their claims upon the 
name of Messiah, which they arrogate to themselves. Comp. xvill. 5. The 
following Aéyovrec, «.7.2. is epexegetical. We possess no historical record 
of any false Messiahs having appeared previous to the destruction of Jerusalem 
(Barcochba did not make his appearance till the time of Hadrian) ; for Simon 
Magus (Acts viii. 9), Theudas (Acts v. 36), the Egyptian (Acts xxi. 38), 
Menander, Dositheus, who have been referred to as cases in point (Theophy- 
lact, Euthymius Zigabenus, Grotius, Calovius, Bengel), did not pretend to be 
the Messiah.? Then as for the period subsequent to the destruction of the cap- 
ital, it is not here in question (in answer to Luthardt, Cremer, Lange) ; for 
see on ver. 29. And consequently it cannot have been intended, as yet, to 
point to such personages as Manes, Montanus, and least of all Mohammed. 

Ver. 6. Aé] continuative : but to turn now from this preliminary warning 
to your question itself—ye will hear, etc. This reply to the disciples’ ques- 
tion as to the events that were to be the precursors of the destruction of the 
temple (comp. wére, ver. 3), is so framed that the prophetic outlook is 
directed first to the more general aspect of things (to what is to take place 
on the theatre of the world at large, vv. 6-8), and then to what is of a more 
special nature (to what concerns the disciples and the community of Chris- 
tians, vv. 9-14).3 — rohéuove x. axodc toAéuov] said with reference to wars 
near at hand, the din and tumult of which are actually heard, and to wars 
at a distance, of which nothing is known except from the reports that are 
brought home. — dpare, pi Opocicbe| take care, be not terrified. For @poeiaée, 
comp. 2 Thess. ii. 2; Song of Sol. v. 4 ; on the two imperatives, as in viii. 


1 Adv. erroneam nonnull. opinion., qua 2 Comp. Joseph. Ant. xx. 5. 1; 8. 6; Bell. 
Christus Christique apost. existumasse per- 1. 13. 5. 
hibentur, fore ut univ. tudicitum ipsor. aetate 3 For the future pedaAno. (you will have to), 


superveniret, 1842. comp. 2 Pet. i. 12; Plat. Hp. vii. p. 326 C. 


CHAP) x xnys, 17: 409 


4, 15, ix. 30, see Buttmann, Newt. Gr. p. 209 [E. T. 243]. — dei yap ravra 
yevécbac| they are not to be terrified, because it is necessary that all that should 
take place. The reflection that it is a matter of necessity in pursuance of the 
divine purpose (xxvi. 54), is referred to as calculated to inspire a calm and 
reassured frame of mind. zdvrais to be understood as meaning : everything 
that is then to happen, not specially (ra rdvra, tatra rdvra, comp. critical 
notes) the matters indicated by weAaAjoete . . . roAéuwv, but rather that : 
nothing, which begins to take place, can stop short of its full accomplish- 
ment. The emphasis, however, is on dei. — 422? obrw éati 75 TéAoc] however, 
this will not be as yet the final consummation, so that you will require to pre- 
serve your equanimity still further.’ 76 7éA0¢ cannot mean the cuvrédeca, ver. 
3 (Chrysostom, Ebrard, Bleek, Lange, Cremer, Auberlen, Hoelemann, Gess), 
but, as the context proves by the correlative expression dpy7 odivwr, ver. 8, 
and by 76 réAoc ver. 14, comp. with oiv ver. 15, the end of the troubles at pres- 
ent under consideration. Inasmuch, then, as these troubles are to be straight- 
way followed by the world’s last crisis and the signs of the Messiah’s 
advent (vv. 29, 30), 76 7éAo¢ must be taken as referring to the end of the 
dolores Messiae. This end isthe laying waste of the temple and the unparal- 
leled desolation of the land that is to accompany it. Ver. 15 ff. This is 
also substantially equivalent to de Wette’s interpretation : ‘‘the decisive 
winding up of the present state of things (and along with it the climax of 
trouble and affliction).” 

Ver. 7. Tap] it is not quite the end as yet ; for the situation will become 
still more turbulent and distressing : nation will rise against nation, and king- 
dom against kingdom, etc. We have here depicted in colors borrowed from 
ancient prophecy (Isa. xix. 2), not only those risings, becoming more and 
more frequent, which, after a long ferment, culminated in the closing scene 
of the Jewish war and led to the destruction of Jerusalem, but also those 
convulsions in nature by which they were accompanied. That this predic- 
tion was fulfilled in its general aspects is amply confirmed, above all, by the 
well-known accounts of Josephus ; but we are forbidden by the very nature 
of genuine prophecy, which cannot and is not meant to be restricted to iso- 
lated points, either to assume or try to prove that such and _ such historical 
events are special literal fulfilments in concrete of the individual features in 
the prophetic outlook before us,—although this has been attempted very 
recently, by Késtlin in particular. As for the Parthian wars and the risings 
that took place some ten years after in Gaul and Spain, they had no connec- 
tion whatever with Jerusalem or Judaea. There is as little reason to refer 
(Wetstein) the roAéuove of ver. 6 to the war waged by Asinaeus and Alinaeus 
against the Parthians,*? and the dxod¢ roAéuwv to the Parthian declaration of 
war against King Izates of Adiabene,? or to explain the latter (axod¢ roAéuwr) 
of the struggles for the imperial throne that had broken out after the death 
of Nero (Hilgenfeld). Jesus, who sees rising before Him the horrors of war 
and other calamities connected, ver, 15, with the coming destruction of 


1 Comp. Hom. JJ. ii. 122: réAos 8 ot ra Te 2 Joseph. Antt. xviii. 9. 1. 
medbavrat, 3 Joseph. Antt. xx, 3. 3. 


410 THE GOSPEL OF MATTHEW. 

Jerusalem, presents a picture of them to the view of His hearers.’— Acuo? x. 
cetouoi| see critical notes. Nor, again, is this feature in the prediction to 
be restricted to some such special famine as that which occurred during the 
reign of Claudius (Acts xi. 28), too early a date for our passage, and to one 
or two particular cases of earthquake which happened in remote countries, 
and with which history has made us familiar (such as that in the neighbor- 
hood of Colossae).? — xara térove] which is applicable only to ceccyoi, as in 
Mark xiii. 8, is to be taken distributively :* locatim, travelling from one 
district to another. The equally grammatical interpretation : in various 
localities here and there (Grotius, Wetstein, Raphel, Kypke, Baumgarten- 
Crusius, Késtlin, Bleek), is rather too feeble to suit the extraordinary 
character of the events referred to. In vv. 6, 7, Dorner finds merely an 
embodiment of the thought: ‘‘evangelium gladii instar disseeabit male 
conjuncta, ut vere jungat ; naturae autem phaenomena concomitantia quasi 
depingent motus et turbines in spiritualibus orbibus orturos,” ‘‘ The Gospel, 
like asword, will dissever things badly joined together, that it may truly join 
them ; but the phenomena of nature in accord will picture forth as it were 
disturbances and whirlwinds about to arise in spiritual worlds.” 

Ver. 8. But all this will be the beginning of woes (Euthymius Zigabenus : 
Tpooiuta TOY cvuudopov), will stand in the same relation to what is about to 
follow, as the beginning of the birth-pangs does to the much severer pains 
which come after. It is apparent from ver. 7 that éora is understood. The 
figure contained in ddivwr is to be traced to the popular way of conceiving of 
the troubles that were to precede the advent of the Messiah as Wnt “ane 
Comp. on ver. 3. 

Ver. 9. Jesus now exhibits the sequel of this universal beginning of woes 
in its special bearing upon the disciples and the whole Christian community. 
Comp. on x. 17 ff. —rére] then, when what is said at ver. 7 will have begun. 
Differently in Luke xxi. 12 (po dé robrwv), where, though rére is not in any 
way further defined (Cremer), we have clearly a correction in order to 
adapt the expression to the persecutions that in the evangelist’s time had 
already begun. Seeing that the expressions are distinctly different from 
each other, it is not enough to appeal to the ‘‘ elasticity” of the rére (Hoele- 
mann). —dzoxtevovow tiuac| spoken generally, not as intimating, nor even 
presupposing (Scholten), the death of all of them. After zapadec. iuac the 
current of prophetic utterance flows regularly on, leaving to the hearers 
themselves to make the necessary distinctions. — kai écecbe prcotuevor] It is a 
mistake to suppose that we have here a reference to Nero’s persecution 


1 Comp. 4 Esdr. xiii. 21; Soha Chadasch, 
f. viii.4: ‘‘Illo tempore bella in mundo 
excitabuntur; gens erit contra gentem, et 
urbs contra urbem: angustiae multae con- 
tra hostes Israelitarum innovabuntur.”’ 
Beresch. Rabba, 42 f., 41.1: *‘ Sivideris regna 
contra se invicem insurgentia, tune attende, 
et adspice pedem Messiae,” “At that time 
wars shall be stirred up in the world ; nation 
shall be against nation, and city against 


city; much distress shall be renewed 
against the enemies of the Israelites.” 
Beresch Rabba, 42 f., 41. 1: ‘* If you shall see 
kingdoms rising against each other in turn, 
then give heed, and note the footstep of the 
Messiah.”’ 

2 Oros. Hist. vii. 7, Tacit. Ann. xiv. 27, and 
that at Pompeii. 

3 Bernhardy, p. 240; Ktihner, II. 1, p. 
414. 


CHAP. XXIV., 10-12. 411 


(proceeding upon an erroneous interpretation of the well-known ‘‘ odio 
humani generis” in Tacit. Ann. xv. 44, see Orelli on the passage), because 
it is the disciples that are addressed ; and to regard them as the representa- 
tives of Christians in general, or as the sum total of the church (Cremer), 
would be arbitrary in the highest degree ; the discourse does not become 
general in its character till ver. 10. Comp. 1 Cor. iv. 18. —imd révrov tr. 
tOvav| by all nations. What a confirmation of this, in all general respects, is 
furnished by the history of the apostles, so far as it is known to us ! But we 
are not justified in saying more, and especially when we take into account 
the prophetic coloring given to our discourse, must we beware of straining 
the vavrwv in order to favor the notion that the expression contains an allu- 
sion to the vast and long-continued efforts that would be made to dissemi- 
nate the gospel throughout the world (Dorner) ; let us repeat that it is the 
apostles who are in question here.? 

Ver. 10. Kai rére] and then, when those persecutions will have broken 
out against you. —cxavda2icfyoovrar roAdoi] many will receive a shock, i.e., 
amany Christians will be tempted to relapse into unbelief, see on xiii. 21. 
For the converse of offendentur in this sense, see ver. 13. Consequence of 
this falling away : Kai a227A0vce tapaddc.| one another, z.e., the Christian who 
has turned apostate, him who has continued faithful. What a climax the 
troubles have reached, seeing that they are now springing up in the very 
heart of the Christian community itself ! 

Ver. 11. Besides this ruinous apostasy in consequence of persecution from 
without, there is the propagation of error by false Christian teachers living 
in the very bosom of the church itse/f (comp. vii. 15). These latter should 
not be more precisely defined.* The history of the apostolic age has suffi- 
ciently confirmed this prediction, Acts xx. 30; 1 Johniv. 1. 

Ver. 12. And in consequence of the growing prevalence of wickedness (as the 
result of what is mentioned in vv. 10, 11), the love of the greater number will 
become cold ; that predominance of evil within the Christian community will 
have the effect of cooling the brotherly love of the majority of its members. 
The moral degeneracy within the pale of that community will bring about 
as its special result a prevailing want of charity, that specific contrast to 
the true characteristic of the Christian life.* For avouia, the opposite of 
moral compliance with the law of God (= dauapria, 1 John iii. 4), comp. vii. 
23, xiii. 41, xxiii. 28; 2 Cor. vi. 14; 2 Thess. ii. 7% For piyew with y, 
comp. Lobeck, ad Phryn. p. 318. — trav roAAdy] are not the 70/20/ mentioned 
in ver. 10 (Fritzsche), whose love, as that verse informs us, is already 
changed into hatred, but the multitude, the mass, the great body * of Chris- 
tians. Inthe case of those who were distinguished above the ordinary run 
of Christians, no such cooling was to take place ; but yet, as compared with 
the latter, they were only to be regarded as oAiyo.. According to Dorner, 
vv. 11, 12 apply not to the apostolic age, but to a subsequent stage in the 


* Comp; K-17; f., 22. Theol. p. 586, ed. 2. 
2 Kostlin : ‘‘ extreme antinomian tenden- 3 Gal. v. 6; 1 Cor. xiii. 1 ff. ; 1 John iv. 20. 
cies; Hilgenfeld: ‘‘those who adhere to 4 Kiihner, IT. 1, p. 548; Ast, Zea. Plat. III. 


Pauline views; comp. also Weiss, Bid. p. 148. 


412 THE GOSPEL OF MATTHEW. 


history of the church. But such a view is inconsistent with the numerous 
testimonies to be met with in the Epistles, with the apprehensions and 
expectations regarding impending events to which they give expression. 
Comp. on Gal. i. 4. 

Ver. 13. ‘0 dé brropueivac] contrast to what in the cravdadiofjo. roddoi of ver. 
10and the riavgc. roddoic of ver. 12 is described as apostasy, partly from 
the faith generally, and partly (ver. 12) from the true Christian faith and 
life. Comp. x. 22. According to Fritzsche, it is only the persevering in 
love that is meant, so that the contrast has reference merely to wuyjoeras, 
x.T.2. But according to our interpretation, the contrast is more thorough 
and better suited to the terms of the passage. —ei¢ réAoc] not perpetuo 
(Fritzsche), which, as the connection shows (ver. 6), is too indefinite ; but: 
unto the end, till the last, until the troubles will have come to an end, which, 
as appears from the context (cwfjoerar), will, in point of fact, be coincident 
with the second advent. Comp. vv. 30, 31, x. 22. The context forbids 
such interpretations as: wnto death (Elsner, Kuinoel, Ebrard), until the 
destruction of Jerusalem (Krebs, Rosenmiiller, R. Hofmann), cofycerac being 
referred in the latter case to the flight of the Christians to Pella.’ Of 
course ver. 13 describes the ‘‘sanam hominis Christiani dispositionem 
spiritualem ad eschatologiam pertinentem,” ‘‘the sound spiritual disposi- 
tion of the Christian man pertaining to eschatology” (Dorner), always on 
the understanding, however, that the second advent is at hand, and that the 
‘‘homo Christianus” will live to see it. 

Ver. 14. Having just uttered the words ei¢ réd0c, Christ now reveals the 
prospect of a most encouraging state of matters which is immediately to precede 
and usher in the consummation indicated by this eic réAoc, namely, the 
preaching of the gospel throughout the whole world in spite of the hatred 
and apostasy previously mentioned (vv. 9, 10 ff.).? The substantial fulfil- 
ment of this prediction is found in the missionary labors of the apostles, 
above all in those of Paul.* —roiro 7d ebayy.] According to de Wette, the 
author here (and xxvi. 13) so far forgets himself as to allude to the gospel 
which he was then in the act of writing. The roivro here may be accounted 
for by the fact that Christ was there and then engaged in preaching the 
gospel of the Messiah’s kingdom, inasmuch as eschatological prediction 
undoubtedly constitutes an essential part of the gospel. Consequently : 
‘*hoc evangelium, quod nuntio.” — év 6Ay 7H oixovu. | must not be limited to 
the Roman empire (Luke ii. 1), but should be taken quite generally : over the 
whole habitable globe, a sense which is alone in keeping with Jesus’ con- 
sciousness of His Messianic mission, and with the zaov roic é@veor which 
follows. —eic¢ waptipiov, k.7.A.] in order that testimony may be borne before all 
nations, namely, concerning me and my work, however much they may have 
hated you for my name’s sake. The interpretation of the Fathers : ei¢ 
éXeyyov, is therefore substantially in accordance with the context (ver. 9), 


1 Eusebius, H. Z. iii. 5. Gospel’’), Euthymius Zigabenus. 

267e ovdéy Tav Sevvav mepryevnoeTat Tov 8 Comp. Acts i. 9; Rom. i. 14, x. 18, xv. 
«npvy.atos, “‘No one of the terrible things 19; Matt. xxviii. 19; Col. i. 23; Clem. 1 
shall prevail over the proclamation (of the Cor. v. 


OHAP. XXIV., 15. 413 


though there was no need to import into the passage the idea of the con- 
demnation of the heathen, which condemnation would follow as a conse- 
quence only in the case of those who might be found to reject the testimony. 
There are other though arbitrary explanations, such as: ‘‘ut nota illis esset 
pertinacia Judaeorum,” ‘‘ that the obstinacy of the Jews may be known to 
them” (Grotius), or: ‘ut gentes testimonium dicere possint harum calami- 
tatum et insignis pompae, qua Jesus Messias in has terras reverti debeat,” 
‘‘that the Gentiles may be able to declare the testimony of these calamities 
and of the remarkable display by which Jesus the Messiah must return to 
this earth” (Fritzsche), or: ‘‘ita ut crisin aut vitae aut mortis adducat,” 
“‘so that it may bring on a erisis of either life or death” (Dorner). — kai 
tére] and then, when the announcement shall have been made throughout 
the whole world. — 76 réAoc| the end of the troubles that are to precede the 
Messiah’s advent, correlative to apyj, ver. 8. Comp. ver. 6 ; consequently 
not to be understood in this instance either as referring to the end of the 
world (Ebrard, Bleek, Dorner, Hofmann, Lange, Cremer), which latter 
event, however, will of course announce its approach by catastrophes in 
nature (ver. 29) immediately after the termination of the dolores Messiae. 
Ver. 15." More precise information regarding this réA0c. —otv] therefore, 
in consequence of what has just been stated in the xa? rére Her rd TéA0c. Ac- 
cording to Ebrard and Hoelemann, ojy indicates a resuming of the previous 
subject :° “* Jesus ad primam questionem revertitur, praemisso secundae quaes- 
tionis responso.” But even Ebrard himself admits that Jesus has not as yet 
made any direct reference to the disciples’ first question, ver. 8, accord- 
ingly he cannot be supposed to recur to it witha mere oiv. Wieseler 
also takes a similar view of oiv. He thinks that it is used by way of resum- 
ing the thread of the conversation, which had been interrupted by the pre- 
liminary warning inserted at vv. 4-14. But this conversation, which the 
disciples had introduced, and in which, moreover, vv. 4-14 are by no 
means of the nature of a mere warning, has not been interrupted at all. 
According to Dorner, oiv marks the transition from the eschatological 
principles contained in vv. 4-14 to the applicatio eorum historica s. prophetica, 
which view is based, however, on the erroneous assumption that vv. 4-14 do 
not possess the character of concrete eschatological prophecy. The predic- 
tions before us respecting the Messianic woes become more threatening till 
just at this point they reach a climax. —70 déAvypua tic Epnudcewe| the abomi- 
nation of desolation ; the genitive denotes that in which the BdéAvya specifically 
consists and manifests itself as such, so that the idea, ‘‘ the abominable deso- 
lation,” is expressed by the use of another substantive instead of the adjective, 
in order to bring out the characteristic attribute in question ; comp. Ecclus. 
xlix. 2; Hengstenberg : the abomination which produces the desolation’ 
But in Daniel also the épfuwore is the leading idea. The Greek expression 
in our passage is not exactly identical with the Septuagint* rendering of 


1See Wieseler in the Gétting. Viertel-  [B. T. 555]. 
jahrschr, 1846, p. 183 ff.; Hengstenberg, 3In the Hebrew of the passage referred 
Christol. III. p. 116 ff. to in Daniel the words are not intended to 
2 Baeumlein, Partik. p. 177; Winer, p. 414 be taken together (Hivernick, yon Len- 


414 THE GOSPEL OF MATTHEW. 

Dvn D'S py, Dan. ix. 27 (xi. 81, xii. 11).1| In this prediction it is not to 
Antichrist, 2 Thess. ii. 4 (Origen, Luthardt, Klostermann, Ewald), that 
Jesus refers ; nor, again, isit to the statue of Titus, which is supposed to 
have been erected on the site of the temple after its destruction (Chrysostom, 
Theophylact, Euthymius Zigabenus) ; nor to that of Caligula, which is 
said? to have beenset up within the temple ; nor even to the equestrian 
statue of Hadrian (all which Jerome considers possible), which references 
would imply a period too early in some instances, and too late in others. It 
is better, on the whole, not to seek for any more special reference (as also 
Elsner, Hug, Bleek, Pfleiderer have done, who see an allusion to the sacri- 
legious acts committed by the zealots in the temple, Joseph. Bell. iv. 6. 3), but 
to be satisfied with what the words themselves plainly intimate : the abom- 
inable desolation on the temple square, which was historically realized in the 
doings of the heathen conquerors during and after the capture of the 
temple, though, at the same time, no special stress is to be laid upon 
the heathen standards detested by the Jews (Grotius, Bengel, Wetstein, de 
Wette, Ebrard, Wieseler, Lange), to which the words cannot refer. 
Fritzsche prefers to leave the 0déA. t. ép. without any explanation whatever, 
in consequence of the 6 dvaywéok. voeito, by which, as he thinks, Jesus 
meant to indicate that the reader was to find out the prophet’s meaning for 
himself. The above general interpretation, however, is founded upon the 
text itself ; nor are we warranted by Dan. ix. 27 in supposing any reference 
of a very special kind to underlie what is said. The idea of a desecration 
of the temple by the Jews themselves (Hengstenberg), or of the corrupt state 
of the Jewish hierarchy,* is foreign to the whole connection. — 76 pyfév dia 
Aav. t. xpod.| what has been said (expressly mentioned) by Daniel,” not : 
‘which is an expression of the prophet Daniel” (Wieseler) ; for the impor- 
tant point was not the prophetic expression, but the thing itself indicated 
by the prophet. Comp. 31.— On éo7éc, see critical notes, and 
Kiithner, IL p. 677.—év rézw dyiv| in the holy place ; i.e., not the town 
as invested by the Romans,* but the place of the temple which has 
been in question from the very first (ver. 2), and which Daniel has in 
view in the passage referred to. The designation selected forms a tragic 
contrast to the BdéAvyya ; comp. Mark xiii. 14: dzov ov dei. Others, and 


Xxil. 


gerke on Dan. ix. 27, Hengstenberg, C/ristol. 
III. p. 103 f.). They are, moreover, very 
variously interpreted; von Lengerke (Heng- 
stenberg), for example: “ the destroyer 


(naw DpH 42 yy is this: the de 


stroyer (comes) on the wing of abominations, 
and that until, ete. Comp. Keil. Ewald on 


comes over the pinnacles of abomination ;” 
Ewald (Auberlen): ‘‘and that on account 
of the fearful height of abominations ;” 
Wieseler: ‘‘and that because of the de- 
structive bird of abomination” (referring 
to the eagle of Jupiter Olympius, to whom 
Epiphanes dedicated the temple at Jerusa- 
lem, 2 Mace. vi. 2); Hofmann, Weissag. u. 
Erf. 1. p. 309: “and that upon an offensive 
idol cover’? (meaning the veil with which 
the altar of the idol was covered). My 
interpretation of the words in the original 


Matthew, p. 412, takes ape) as a paraphrase 


for 70 iepoy. The Sept. rendering is prob- 
ably from such passages as Ps. lvii. 2. For 
other explanations still, see Hengstenberg, 
Christol. III. p. 123 ff. ; Bleekin the Jahrb. f. 
D. Theol. 1860, p. 98 ff. 

1 Comp. 1 Mace. i. 54, Vi. 7. 

2 But see Krebs, p. 53. 

3 Weisse, Hvangelienfr. p. 170f. 

4So Hoelemann and many older exposi- 
tors, after Luke xxi. 20. 


CHAP XxbvV., 16. 415 


among them de Wette and Baumgarten-Crusius (comp. Weiss on Mark), un- 
derstand the words as referring to Palestine, especially to the neighborhood 
of Jerusalem (Schott, Wieseler), or to the Mount of Olives (Bengel), because it 
is supposed that it would have been too late to seek to escape after the 
temple had been captured, and so the flight of the Christians to Pella took 
place as soon as the war began. The ground here urged, besides being an 
attempt to make use of the special form of its historical fulfilment in order 
to correct the prophetic picture itself, as though this latter had been of the 
nature of a special prediction, is irrelevant, for this reason, that in ver. 16 
the words used are not ‘‘in Jerusalem,” but év ti Iovdaia ; see on ver. 16. 
Jesus means to say : When the abomination of desolation will have marred 
and defaced the symbol of the divine guardianship of the people, then every- 
thing is to be given up as lost, and safety sought only by fleeing from 
Judaea to places of greater security among the mountains. — 6 dvayiwéckov 
vorizw| let the reader understand ! (Eph. iii. 4). Parenthetical observation by 
the evangelist, to impress upon his readers the precise point of time indicated 
by Jesus at which the flight is to take place upon the then impending (not 
already present, Hug, Bleek) catastrophe. Chrysostom, Euthymius Zig- 
abenus, Paulus, Fritzsche, Kaeuffer, Hengstenberg,’ Baumgarten-Crusius, 
Ewald, ascribe the observation to Jesus, from whose lips, however, one would 
have expected, in the flow of living utterance, and according to His manner 
elsewhere, an expression similar to that in xi. 15, xiii. 9, or at least 6 dxotwr 
voeitw.—We may add that our explanation is favored by Mark xiii. 14, where 
70 pybév ixd Aay. tov tpod. being spurious, it is consequently the reader, not 
of Daniel, but of the gospel, that ismeant. Hoelemann incorrectly interprets : 
‘‘he who has discernment, let him understand it” (alluding to Dan. xii. 11) ; 
avayivéok. is never used in the New Testament in any other sense than that of 
to read. 

Ver. 16 ff. Apodosis down to ver. 18. —oi év r. ’Iovd.] means those who 
may happen to be living in the country of Judaea (John iii. 22), in contra- 
distinction to Jerusalem with its holy place, the abominations in which are 
to be the signal for flight. — 7 xaraBawéro, x.7.4.] Some have conceived 
the idea to be this: ‘‘ne per scalas interiores, sed exteriores descendat,” 
‘‘let him come down not by stairs within, but outside,” Bengel (Grotius, 
Wetstein) ; or: let him flee over the roofs (over the lower walls, separating 
house from house, till he comes to the city wall, Michaelis, Kuinoel, 
Fritzsche, Paulus, Winer, Kaeuffer). Both views may be taken each ac- 
cording to ER CUmstances. — ra ék TH¢ oixiac avTow| common attraction for ra 
év TH oikia éx THC olKiac.? — év TS ayp@| where, being at work, he has no upper 
garment with him. — People will have to flee to save their lives (ver. 22) ; 
not according to the idea imported by Hofmann : to escape the otherwise 
too powerful temptation to deny the Lord. This again is decisively refuted 
by the fact that, in vv. 16-19, it is not merely the disciples or believers who 
are ordered to flee, but the summons to do so is a general one. What is said 


1 Authent. d. Dan. p. 258 ff. 
2 See Kiihner, I. 174, and ad Xen. Mem. iii. 6. iL: ‘Winer, p. 584 [E. T. 784]. 


416 THE GOSPEL OF MATTHEW. 


with reference to the flight does not assume an individualizing character 
till ver. 20. 

Ver. 19. Ai pév yap éyxvoe ob dvvgcovta: debyew, TO Goptip THE yaotpdo¢ Bapvvé- 
pevat’ ai O& OyAalovoa dia THY Tpd¢ Ta Téxva cuuTdabecav, ‘*‘Some being pregnant 
will not be able to flee, weighed down by the burden in the womb ; others 
suckling (will not be able) on account of their strong feeling of sympathy 
for their children,” Theophylact. ; 

Ver. 20. "Iva] Odject of the command, and therefore its. purport.’ — undé 
oa3Barw| without év, as in xii. 1.7 On the Sabbath the rest and the so- 
lemnities enjoined by the law, as well as the short distance allowed for a 
Sabbath-day’s journey (2000 yards, according to Ex. xvi. 29),* could not 
but interfere with the necessary haste, unless one were prepared in the cir- 
cumstances to ignore all such enactments. Taken by themselves, the words 
pndé caBBarw seem, no doubt, to be inconsistent with Jesus’ own liberal 
views regarding the Sabbath (xii. 1 ff. ; John v. 17, vii. 22); but he is 
speaking from the standpoint of His disciples, such a standpoint as they oc- 
cupied at the time He addressed them, and which was destined to be out- 
grown only in the course of a later development of ideas (Rom. xiv. 5 ; Col. 
ii. 6). As in the case of yecudvoc, what is here said is simply with a view to 
everything being avoided calculated to interfere with their hasty flight.* 

Ver. 21. Those hindrances to flight are all the more to be deprecated that 
the troubles are to be unparalleled, and therefore a rapid flight will be a 
matter of the most urgent necessity. — éw¢ rov viv] usque ad hoc tempus, Rom. 
Vili. 22. Kéoyov is not to be supplied here (Fritzsche).° On the threefold 
negative ovdé ov w#, see Bornemann in the Stud. u. Krit. 1843, p. 109 f.° 

Ver. 22. And unless those days had been shortened, those, namely, of the 
Ohiic weyady (ver. 29), ete. This is to be understood of the reduction of the 
number of the days over which, but for this shortening, the ive would 
have extended, not of the curtailing of the length of the day (Fritzsche),— 
a thought of which Lightfoot quotes an example from Rabbinical litera- 
ture (comp. the converse of this, Josh. x. 18), which, seeing that there is a 
considerable number of days, would be to introduce an element of a very ex- 
traordinary character into the usual ideas connected with the acceleration 
of the advent (1 Cor. vil. 29). Rather comp. the similar idea, which in 
Barnab. iv. is ascribed to Enoch. — écd67] used here with reference to the 
saving of the life (viii. 25, xxvii. 40, 42, 49, and frequently).’7. Hofmann in- 
correctly explains : saved from denying the Lord. — raca cap£] every flesh, 
1.e., every mortal man (see on Actsii. 16), would not be rescued, 7.¢., wowld have 
perished.* The limitation of raca cdpé to the Jews and Christians belonging 


1 Mark xiv. 35; Col. i. 9. p.38 A: obdé yeveodar mote ovdé yeyovevar viv 

2 Winer, p. 205 [E. T. 274]. ovd’ civavis Eceodar, ‘nor ever did become, 

3 See Lightfoot on Luke xxiy. 50; Actsi. or has become now, or hereafter will 
12 ; Schoettgen, p. 406. be,” etc., Stallbaum, ad Rep. p. 492 E. 

4 Comp. x. 23. 7Euthymius Zigabenus: ov« av vmegedvye 


5 See, on the other hand, Mark xiii. 19; 1 Tov davatov, ‘* would not, could not escape 
Mace. ii. 33; Plat. Parm. p. 152 CO, Ep. xiii. death.” 
p. 361 EH. ® Comp. for the position of the negative, 
® For the expression generally, Plat. Tim. Fritzsche, Diss. II. on 2 Cor. p. 24 f. 


CHAP. XXIV., 23. ALT 


to town or country who are found in immediate contact with the theatre of 
war, is justified by the context. The éxAexroi are included, but it is not these 
alone who are meant (Hofmann), — The aorist éxoA0B. conveys the idea that 
the shortening was resolved upon in the counsels of the divine compassion 
(Mark xiii. 20), and its relation to the aorist éoa#y7 in the apodosis is this : 
had the shortening of the period over which the calamities were to extend 
not taken place, this would have involved the utter destruction of all flesh. 
The future cor08ufjo. again conveys the idea that the actual shortening is 
being effected, and therefore that the case supposed, with the melancholy 
consequences involved in it, has been averted. —- dia d2 rode éxAexroic| for sake 
of the chosen (for the Messianic kingdom), in order that they might be pre- 
served for the approaching advent. That in seeking to save the righteous, 
God purposely adopts a course by which He may save others at the same 
time, is evident from Gen. xviii. 13 ff. But the éxdexroé (see on xxii. 14) 
are those who, at the time of the destruction of the capital, are believers in 
Christ, and are found persevering in their faith in Him (ver. 13) ;, not the 
future crediturit as well ;* which latter view is precluded by the eibéwe of 
ver. 29. — There is a certain solemnity in the repetition of the same words 
Ko20B. ai juépac éxetvat. Ebrard lays stress upon the fact, as he supposes, 
that our passage describes a calamity ‘‘cui finis sit imponendus, et quae 
ab aetate paulo saltem feliciore sit excipienda,” ‘‘to which an end may 
be put, and which may be followed by an age a little more happy at 
least,” and accordingly infers that the idea of the immediate end of the 
world is thereby excluded. But the aetas paulo saltem felicior, or the sup- 
position that there is any interval at all between the @Aic peydday and ver. 
29, is foreign to the text ; but the end of the above-mentioned disaster 
is to take place in order that what is stated at ver. 29 may follow it at once. 

Ver. 23 ff. Tére] then, when the desolation of the temple and the great 
fAiuc shall have arrived, false Messiahs, and such as falsely represent them- 
selves to be prophets, will again come forward and urge their claims with 
greater energy than ever, nay, in the most seductive ways possible. Those 
here referred to are different from the pretenders of ver. 4 f. The excite- 
ment and longing that will be awakened in the midst of such terrible dis- 
tress will be taken advantage of by impostors with pretensions to miracle- 
working, and then how dangerous they will prove! By such early exposi- 
tors as Chrysostom and those who come after him, ver. 23 was supposed to 
mark the transition to the subject of the advent, so that rére would pass 
over the whole period between the destruction of Jerusalem and the second 
advent ; while, according to Ebrard (comp. Schott), the meaning intended 
by Jesus in vy. 23, 24 is, that after the destruction of the capital, the con- 
dition of the church and of the world, described in vv. 4-14, ‘‘ in posterum 
quoque mansurum esse.” Such views would have been discarded if due regard 
had been paid to the rére by which the point of time is precisely defined, as 
well as to the circumstance that the allusion here is merely to the coming 


1 Jahn in Bengel’s Archiv. Il.1; Schott, Opuse. II. p. 205 ff. ; Lange, following Augus- 
tine, Calovius. 


418 THE GOSPEL OF MATTHEW. 
forward of false Christs and false prophets. Consequently we should 
also beware of saying, with Calovius, that at this point Ghrist passes to the 
subject of His adventus spiritualis per evangelium. He is still speaking of 
that period of distress, ver. 21 f., which is to be immediately followed, ver. 
29, by the second advent. — pevddyproror] those who falsely claim to be Mes- 
siah ; nothing is known regarding the historical fulfilment of this.*— wevdo- 
mpodyrac| according to the context, not Christian teachers (ver. 11), in the 
present instance, but such as pretended to be sent by God, and inspired to speak 
to the people in the season of their calamity,—deceivers similar to those who 
had tried to impose upon their fellow-countrymen during the national mis- 
fortunes of earlier times (Jer. xiv. 14, v. 13, vi. 13, viii. 10).* Others sup- 
pose that the reference is to such as sought to pass for Elijah or some other 
prophet risen from the dead (Kuinoel), which would scarcely agree with the 
use of a term so general as the present ; there are those also who think it is 
the emissaries of the false Messiahs who are intended (Grotius). — décovor] 
not : promise (Kypke, Krebs), but : give, so as to suit the idea involved in 
onpueia.* —On onpeia kai tépata, between which there is no material difference, 
see on Rom. xv. 19. Miracles may also be performed by Satanic agency, 2 
Thess. ii. 9. — Gore rAavyfjva (see critical notes): so that the very elect may 
be led astray * if possible.’ — Ver. 25. Avauapriperae éaoparCouevoc, *‘ being 
perfectly sure, He solemnly asseverates,” Euthymius Zigabenus. Comp. 
John xiv. 29. 

Ver. 26. Oiv] according to the tenor of this my prediction. Ver. 26 does 
not stand to ver. 23 in the relation of a strange reduplication (Weiss), but as 
a rhetorical amplification which is brought to an emphatic close by a repe- 
tition of the py moretonre of ver. 23. — éori] the Messiah, ver. 23. — év roic¢ 
taueioic] the article is to be taken demonstratively, while the plural denotes 
the inner rooms of a house. According to Fritzsche, we have here the cate- 
gorical plural (see on ii. 20): ‘‘en, ibi est locorum, quae conclavia appellan- 
tur.” That would be too vague a pretence. The phraseology here made 
use of : in the wilderness—in the inner rooms of the house—is simply apoca- 
lyptic imagery.® 

Ver. 27. Reason why they were not to listen to such assertions. The ad- 
vent of the Messiah will not be of such a nature that you will require to be 
directed to look here or look there in order to see Him ; but it will be 
as the lightning, which, as soon as it appears, suddenly announces its 


presence everywhere." Not as though the advent were not to be connected 


1 Jonathan (Joseph. Bell. vii. 11. 3) and 
Barcochba (see on ver. 5) appeared at a 
later period. 

2 Comp. Joseph. Bell. ii. 18.4: mAavor yap 
avOpwrot Kal amat@vtTes mposxywate OeragpLov 
VewTEpLa}Lovs Kal peTaBoAas mpaymaTEevomeEvot, 
Samovav To wANO0s avereor, K.T.A. 

3 Comp. xii. 89; Deut. xiii. 1. 

4 Kiihner, IT. 2, p. 1005: 

5 ei Suvarov: si fieri possit ; “conatus sum- 
mus, sed tamen irritus,” ‘‘if it can be ac- 
complished; the very highest effort, but 


yet in vain,’ Bengel. 

&“ Ultra de deserto et penetralibus 
quaerere non est sobrii interpretis,”’ ‘* It be- 
longs not to a sober interpreter to seek be- 
yond concerning the desert and the inner 
rooms,” Maldonatus. 

TovTws Etat H wapovaia éxelvy, OOD TaVTA- 
xov datvonevyn dia thy ExAap Wry THs doéys, 
“thus that coming shall be, together every- 
where shining forth through the brightness 
of His glory,’ Chrysostom, 


CHAP. XXIV., 28. 419 


with some locality or other upon earth, or were to be invisible altogether 
(R. Hofmann); but what is meant is, that when it takes place, it will all of 
a sudden openly display itself ina glorious fashion over the whole world. 
Ebrard (comp. Schott) is wrong in supposing that the point of compar- 
ison lies only in the circumstance that the event comes suddenly and without 
any premonition. For certainly this would not tend to show, as Jesus 
means to do, that the assertion : he is in the wilderness, etc., is an unwar- 
rantable pretence. 

Ver. 28. Confirmation of the truth that the advent will announce its pres- 
ence everywhere, and that from the point of view of the retributive punish- 
ment which the coming One will be called upon everywhere to execute. 
The emphasis of this figurative adage is on érov éav @ and éxei : ‘wherever 
the carcase may happen to be, there will the eagles be gathered together, ”— 
on no spot where there is a carcase will this gathering fail, so that, when the 
Messiah shall have come, He will reveal Himself everywhere in this aspect 
also (namely, as an avenger). Such is the sense in which this saying was 
evidently understood as early as the time of Luke xvii. 37. The carcase is a 
metaphorical expression denoting the spiritually dead (viii. 22 ; Luke xvi. 
24) who are doomed to the Messianic ardéjeva, while the words ovvayOjoovrat 
(namely, at the advent) oi deroi convey the same idea as that expressed in 
xiii. 41, and which is as follows: the angels, who are sent forth by the 
Messiah for the purpose, ovAAéfovow éx tHe BactAeiacg avTov TavTa Ta oKdvdara, 
Kai Sadovow avtove ei¢ tiv Kautvov Tov rupdc, the only difference being, that in 
our passage the prophetic imagery depicting the mode of punishment is not 
that of consuming by fire, and that for the simple reason that the latter 
would not harmonize with the idea of the carcase and the eagles (Bleek, 
Luthardt, Auberlen). Others (Lightfoot, Hammond, Clericus, Wolf, Wet- 
stein) have erroneously supposed that the carcase alludes to Jerusalem or the 
Jews, and that the eagles are intended to denote the Roman legions with their 
standards.’ But it isthe advent that is in question ; while, according to vv. 
23-27, brov éav 7 cannot be taken as referring to any one particular locality, 
so that Hoelemann is also in error, inasmuch as, though he interprets the 
cagles as representing the Messiah and His angel-hosts, he nevertheless under- 
stands the carcase to mean Jerusalem as intended to form the central scene 
of the advent. It is no less mistaken to explain the latter of ‘‘ the corpses 
of Judaism” (Hilgenfeld), on the ground that, as Keim also supposes, Christ 
means to represent Himself ‘‘ as Him who is to win the spoils amid the physi- 
cal and moral ruins of Israel.” According to Cremer, the carcase denotes 
the anti- Messianic agitation previously described, which is destined to be sup- 
pressed and punished by the imperial power (the eagles). This view is erro- 
neous ; for, according to ver. 27, the cuvay@. oi aeroi can only represent the 
mapovcia Tt. viov Tt. avip.? Similarly such early expositors as Chrysostom (who 
thinks the angels and martyrs are intended to be included), Jerome, Theo- 


>Xen. Anab. i. 10. 12; Plut. Mar. 23. sias, ibi homines, qui ejus potestatis futuré 
2 Fritzsche and Fleck, p. 384; ‘“‘ubi Mes- sint”’ (ot éxAextoi, ver. 31). 


420 THE GOSPEL OF MATTHEW. 
phylact,’ Euthymius Zigabenus, Miinster, Luther, Erasmus,* Beza, Calvin, 
Clarius, Zeger, Calovius, Jansen. But how inappropriate and incongruous 
it would be to compare the Messiah (who is conceived of as rpo@7) mvevpartiKg, 
Euthymius Zigabenus) to the carcase ; which is all the more offensive when, 
with Jerome, rréua is supposed to contain a reference to the death of Jesus 
—a view which Calvin rejected. Wittichen * reverses the subjects of com- 
parison, and takes the carcase as representing the Israelitish é«Aexro/, and the 
eagles as representing the Messiah. But this interpretation is likewise for- 
bidden by the incongruity that would result from the similitude of the car- 
case so suggestive of the domain of death, as well as by that universal char- 
acter of the advent to which the context bears testimony. With astonish- 
ing disregard of the context, Kaeuffer observes : 7 miotebonre, sc. illis, nam 
ubi materies ad praedandum, ibi praedatores avidi, h. e. nam in fraudem 
vestram erit,”’ ‘‘do not trust, viz., them, for where there is matter for booty, 
there are eager robbers, that is, for it will be to your damage.” * — oi aero/] 
are the carrion-kites (vultur percnopterus, Linnaeus), which the ancients re- 
garded as belonging to the eagle species.° 

Ver. 29. Here follows the second portion of the reply of Jesus, in which He 
intimates what events, following at once on the destruction of Jerusalem, 
are immediately to precede His second coming (vv. 29-83) ; mentioning at the 
same time, that however near and certain this latter may be, yet the day and 
hour of its occurrence cannot be determined, and that it will break unex- 
pectedly upon the world (vv. 34-41) ; this should certainly awaken men to 
watchfulness and preparedness (vv. 42-51), to which end the two parables, 
xxy. 1-30, are intended to contribute. The discourse then concludes with 
a description of the final judgment over which the coming one is to preside 
(xxv. 31-46). — cifléwc O28 wera. OAiw Tov juep. éx.| but immediately after the 
distress of those days, immediately after the last (76 réAoc) of the series of 
Messianic woes described from ver. 15 onwards, and the first of which is to 
be coincident with the destruction of the temple. 
comp. vv. 19, 22; and for Amv, ver. 21. Ebrard’s explanation of this 
passage falls to the ground with his erroneous interpretation of vv. 23, 
24, that explanation being as follows : immediately after the unhappy 
condition of the church (vv. 28-28), a condition which is to continue after 
the destruction of Jerusalem,—it being assumed that the eiféw¢ involves the 
meaning : ‘‘nullis aliis intercedentibus indiciis.” It may be observed gen- 
erally, that a whole host of strange and fanciful interpretations have been 
given here, in consequence of its having been assumed that Jesus could not 
possibly have intended to say that His second advent was to follow imme- 
diately upon the destruction of Jerusalem. This assumption, however, is 


For rév juep. éxeivor, 


1 bomep emt vexpor casa ocvvayovtar o€€ws ot 
GETOL, OUTW Kal EvOa ay Ein 0 XptaTos, EAeVooVTaL 
mavtes ot ayo, ‘As the eagles quickly 
gather at a dead body, so also, where the 
Christ may be, all the holy ones will come.”’ 

2“Non deerunt capiti sua membra,”’ 
“the head will not be lacking its mem- 
bers 


3 In the Jahrb. f. D. Theol. 1862, p. 337. 

4 On the question as to whether mrapa 
without a qualifying genitive be good 
Greek, see Lobeck, ad Phryn. p. 375. 

5 See Plin. V. H. x. 3; Aristot. ix. 22. For 
the similitude, comp. Job xxxix. 30; Hos. 
Vill. 1; Hab: villi. 1; Prov. xxx. 177 Hzek. 
PO. dG, Ih 


CHAP. XXIV., 29. 421 


contrary to all exegetical rule, considering that Jesus repeatedly makes ref- 
erence elsewhere (see also ver, 34) to His second coming as an event that is 
near athand. Among those interpretations may also be classed that of Schott 
(following such earlier expositors as Hammond and others, who had already 
taken eiféwe in the sense of suddenly), who says that Matthew had written 
OND, subito, but that the translator (like the Sept. in the case of Job y. 3) 
had rendered the expression ‘‘ minus accurate” by ei@éwe. This is certainly 
a wonderful supposition, for the simple reason that the OND) itself would 
be a wonderful expression to use if an interval of a thousand years was to 
intervene. Bengel has contributed to promote this view by his observation 
that : ‘‘ Nondum erat tempus revelandi totam seriem rerum futurarum a 
vastatione Hieros. usque ad consummationem seculi,”’ ‘‘ it was not yet time 
to reveal the whole series of future events from the destruction of Jerusalem 
to the end of the world,” and by his paraphrase of the passage: ‘‘ De iis, 
quae post pressuram dierum illorum, delendae urbis Jerusalem, evenient, 
prozimum, quod in praesenti pro mea conditione commemorandum et pro 
vestra capacitate expectandum venit, hoc est, quod sol obscurabitur,” etc., 
“concerning those things which shall happen, after the tribulation of those days, 
the destruction of the city of Jerusalem, the nearest, which at the present, ac- 
cording to my condition, comes to be remembered, and according to your ca- 
pacity to be waited for, is this, that the sun shall be darkened,” etc. Many 
others, as Wetstein, for example, have been enabled to dispense with gratui- 
tous assumptions of this sort by understanding ver. 29 ff. to refer to the 
destruction of Jerusalem, which is supposed to be described therein in the 
language of prophetic imagery (Kuinoel), and they so understand the verse 
in spite of the destruction already introduced at ver. 15. In this, however, 
they escape Scylla only to be drawn into Charybdis, and are compelled to 
have recourse to expedients of a still more hazardous kind in order to ex- 
plain away the literal advent,’ which is depicted in language as clear asit is 
sublime. And yet E. J. Meyeragain interprets vv. 29-34 of the destruction 
of Jerusalem, and in such a way as to make it appear that the prediction re- 
garding the final advent is not introduced till ver. 35. But this view is at 
once precluded by the fact that in ver.35 6 obpavo¢ k. 7) yz Tapedeboera Cannot 
be regarded as the leading idea, the theme of what follows, but only as a 
subsidiary thought (v.18) by way of background for the words oi 62 Adyox wou 
ov uy TapéAO. immediately after (observe, Christ does not say oi yap Aoyor, 
k.T.A., but of dé Adyor, x.7.4.). Hoelemann, Cremer, Auberlen are right in 
their interpretation of ei@éwe, but wrong in regarding the time of the culmi- 
nation of the heathen power—an idea imported from Luke xxi. 24—as antece- 
dent to the period indicated by eiféwe. Just as there are those who seek to 
dispose of the historical difficulty connected with eiféwc by twisting the 
sense of what precedes, and by an importation from Luke xxi. 24, so Dorner 








1Comp. the Old Testament prophecies Zech. xiv. 6, ete., and the passages from 
respecting the day of the coming of Jeho- Rabbinical writers in Bertholdt, Christod. 
vah, Isa. xiii. 9 ff., xxxiv. 4, xxiv. 21; Jer. iv. § 12: Gfrorer, Gesch. d. Urchrist. I. 2, pp. 
23 f.; Ezek. xxxii. 7 f.; Hag. ii. 6 f. ; Joel ii. 195 ff., 219 ff. 
10, ili. 3 f.,iv. 15; Zeph. 1.15; Hag. ii. 21; 


422 THE GOSPEL OF MATTHEW. 


seeks to dispose of it by twisting the sense of what comes after. —6é fi0¢ 
oxotio$., k.7.A.] Description of the great catastrophe in the heavens which is 
to precede the second advent of the Messiah. According to Dorner, our 
passage is intended as a prophetical delineation of the fall of heathenism, 
which would follow immediately upon the overthrow of Judaism ; and, ac- 
cordingly, he sees in the mention of the sun, moon, and stars an allusion to 
the nature-worship of the heathen world, an idea, however, which is refuted, 
at once by ver. 34.' | Ewald correctly interprets : ‘‘ While the whole world 
is being convulsed (ver. 29, after Joel iii. 3 f. ; Isa. xxxiv. 4, xxiv. 21), 
the heaven-sent Messiah appears in His glory (according to Dan. vii. 13) to 
judge,” etc. — oi aortépec mecovvra, x.t.2.] Comp. Isa. xxxiv. 4. To be un- 
derstood literally, but not as illustrative of sad times (Hengstenberg on the 
Revelation ; Gerlach, letzte Dinge, p. 102) ; and yet not in the sense of 
Jfalling-stars (Fritzsche, Kuinoel), but as meaning : the whole of the stars 
together. Similarly in the passage in Isaiah just referred to, in accordance 
with the ancient idea that heaven was a firmament in which the stars were 
set for the purpose of giving light to the earth (Gen. i. 14). The falling of 
the stars (which is not to be diluted, with Bengel, Paulus, Schott, Olshau- 
sen, Baumgarten-Crusius, Cremer, following the Greek Fathers, so as to 
mean a mere obscuration) to the earth—which, in accordance with the cos- 
mical views of the time, is the plain and natural sense of cic ryv yqv (see 
Rey. vi. 13)—is, no doubt, impossible as an actual fact, but it need not sur- 
prise us to see such an idea introduced into a prophetic picture so grandly 
poetical as this is,—a picture which it is scarcely fair to measure by the as- 
tronomical conceptions of our own day. 
usually explained of the starry hosts,? which, coming as it does after oi aorépec 
meoovvra, Would introduce a tautological feature into the picture. The words 
should therefore be taken in a general sense : the powers of the heavens (the 
powers which uphold the heavens, which stretch them out, and produce the 
phenomena which take place in them, etc.) will be so shaken as to lose their 
usual stability. Comp. Job. xxvi. 11. The interpretation of Olshausen, 
who follows Jerome, Chrysostom, Euthymius Zigabenus, in supposing that 
the trembling in the world of angels is referred to (Luke ii. 13), is inconsis- 
tent not merely with cadtevijo., but also with the whole connection which 
refers to the domain of physical things. For the plural trav ovpavor, comp. 
Ecclus. xvi. 16. — This convulsion in the heavens, previous to the Messiah’s 
descent therefrom, is not as yet to be regarded as the end of the world, but 
only as a prelude to it ; the earth is not destroyed as yet by the celestial 
commotion referred to (ver. 30). The poetical character of the picture does 
not justify us in regarding the thing so vividly depicted as also belonging 
merely to the domain of poetry,—all the less that, in the present case, it is 
not political revolutions (Isa. xiii. 10, xxxiv. 4; Ezek, xxxii. 7f. ; Joel iii. 
3 f.) that are in view, but the new birth of the world, and the establishment - - 
of the Messiah’s kingdom. [See note XI., p. 434 ef seq. 


ai Ovvauere Tov ovpavov cadev#.] is 








1See E. J. Meyer, p. 125 ff.; Bleek, p. 2Tsa. xxxiv. 4, xl. 26; Ps. xxxiii. 6; Deut. 
356; Hofmann, p. 636; Gess, p. 136. iv. 19; 2 Kings xyii. 16, etc. 


CHAP. XXIV., 30. 423 


Ver. 30. Kat rére] and then, when what is intimated at ver. 29 shall have 
arrived. — gavfoera:] universally, and so not visible merely to the elect 
(Cremer), which would not be in keeping with what follows. — 70 onpeiov 
tov viov r. avOp.| accordingly the sign inquired about in ver. 8, that phenome- 
non, namely, which is immediately to precede the coming Messiah, the Son of 
man of Dan. vii. 18, and which is to indicate that His second advent is now 
on the point of taking place, which is to be the signal of this latter event. 
As Jesus does not say what this is to be, it should be left quite indefinite ; 
only this much may be inferred from what is predicted at ver. 29 about the 
darkening of the heavenly bodies, that it must be of the nature of a mant- 
Sestation of light, the dawning of the Messianic défa which is perhaps to go 
on increasing in brilliancy and splendor until the Messiah Himself steps 
forth from the midst of it in the fulness of His glory. There is no founda- 
tion for supposing, with Cyril, Hilary, Chrysostom, Augustine, Jerome, 
Erasmus, that the allusion is to a cross appearing in the heavens ; with 
Hebart, that it is to the rending of heaven or the appearing of angels ; with 
Fleck and Olshausen, that it is to the star of the Messiah (Num. xxiv. 17); 
similarly Bleek, though rather more by way of conjecture. Following the 
older expositors, Fritzsche, Ewald, Hengstenberg, R. Hofmann understand 
the coming Messiah Himself : ‘‘miraculum, quod Jesus revertens Messias 
oculis objiciet” ‘‘the miracle which Jesus returning as Messiah will present 
to their eyes,” (accordingly, taking rod viod r. avOp. as a genitive of subject ; 
while Wolf, Storr, Weiss, Bibl. Theol. p. 56, ed. 2, assume it to be a geni- 
tive of apposition). This view is inconsistent not only with what follows, 
where the words «ai dpovra: Tov vidv, K.T.A., evidently point to something still 
farther in the future, and which the oyweiov serves to introduce, but also 
with the question of the disciples, ver. 8. R. Hofmann thinks that the ref- 
erence is to that apparition in the form of a man which is alleged to have 
stood over the holy of holies for a whole night while the destruction of the 
capital was going on. A legendary story (chronicled by Ben-Gorion); and 
it may be added that what is said, vv. 29-31, certainly does not refer to the 
destruction of Jerusalem, after which event Hofmann supposes our evan- 
gelist to have written. Lastly, some (Schott, Kuinoel) are even of opinion 
that cyueiov does not point to any new and special circumstance at all—to 
anything beyond what is contained in ver. 29; but the introduction of the 
sequel by rére is decidedly against this view. — «ai rére] a new point brought 
forward : and then, when this cyueiov has been displayed. — Kéyovrac] ;* with 
what a totally different order of things are they now on the point of being 
confronted, what a breaking up and subversion of all the previous relation- 
ships of life, what a separation of elements hitherto mingled together, and 
what a deciding of the final destinies of men at the judgment of the old and 
the ushering in of the new aiéyv ! Hence, being seized with terror and anguish, 
they will mourn (see on xi. 17). The sorrow of repentance (Dorner, Ewald) 
is not to be regarded as excluded from this mourning. There is no adequate 
reason to suppose, with Ewald, that, in the collection of our Lord’s sayings 


1 Comp. Zech. xii. 10; Rev. i. 7. 


424. THE GOSPEL OF MATTHEW. 

(the Adyia), dyovrac probably occurred twice here, and that it was reserved 
for the last redactor of those sayings to make a play upon the word by sub- 
stituting Képovra:. — épydouevov, k.7.A.] as in Dan. vil. 13. — pera duvdyu. x. d68. 
xoin.] This great power and majesty will also be displayed in the accompany- 
ing angel-hosts, ver. 31. The raca ai ov2ai rH¢ ya are not : ‘‘omnes familiae 
Judaeorum” (Kuinoel), as those who explain ver. 29 ff. of the destruction of 
Jerusalem must understand the words, but : all the tribes of the earth.’ 

Ver. 31. Kai arooreAci] And He will send forth, i.e., from the clouds of 
heaven, 1 Thess. iv. 16, 17.—rotce ayyédove airov] the angels specially 
employed in His service. — era cddAriyyoc dwva¢ peyad.| with (having as 
an accompaniment) @ trumpet of a loud sound. The second genitive qual- 
ifies and is governed by the first.2 The idea is not that the individual an- 
gels blow trumpets, but what is meant (Isa. xxvii. 13) is the last trumpet 
(1 Cor. xv. 52), the trumpet of God (1 Thess. iv. 16), which is sounded 
while the Messiah is sending forth the angels. The resurrection of believers 
is also to be understood as taking place on the sound of this trumpet being 
heard (1 Cor. as above ; 1 Thess. as above). — éxvovvdtovar] gather together,* 
namely, toward the place where He is in the act of appearing upon earth. 
This gathering together of the elect, which is to be a gathering from every 
quarter (comp. Rey. i. 7), and from the whole compass of the earth, isan act 
and accompaniment of the second advent (in answer to Cremer’s distinction). * 
But the dprdfecbai cic aépa, to meet the Lord as He approaches (1 Thess. iv. 
17), is to be regarded as taking place after this gathering together has been 
effected. — rode éxAext. abroi| the elect belonging to Him (chosen by God for 
the Messianic kingdom, as in ver. 22).5— a7 axpwv oipav.| ab extremitatibus 
coelorum usque ad extremitates eorum, i.e., from one horizon to the other, ° 
therefore from the whole earth (ver. 14), on which the extremities of the 
sky seem to rest.7—As showing the exegetical abuses to which this grand 
passage has been subjected, take the following, Lightfoot : ‘‘ emittet filius 
hominis ministros suos cum tuba evangelica,” etc.;° ‘‘the Son of man will 
send forth His ministers with the trumpet of the Gospel,” etc. Olshausen : 
he will send out men armed with the awakening power of the Spirit of God, 
for the purpose of assembling believers at a place of safety. This is sub- 
stantially the view of Tholuck also.—It may be observed, moreover, that 
this passage forbids the view of Késtlin, p. 26, that our Gospel does not 
contain a specifically Christian, but merely an ethical universalism (as con- 
trasted with Jewish obduracy).° 


1 Comp. Gen. xii. 8, xxviii. 14. 
2See Buttmann, Veut. Gr. p. 295 [E. T. 


calamitate Judaeis, adversariis religionis 
Christianae, infligenda, ubivis locorum 


343]. 

3 xxili. 27; 2 Thess. ii. 1; 2 Mace. i. 27, ii. 
18. 

4 See Hoelemann, p. 171. 

5 Comp. Rom. i. 6. 

6 For ovpav®v without the article, see 
Winer, p. 115 [E. T. 150]. 

T Deut. iv. 82, xxx. 4; Ps. xix. 7. 

® Kuinoel (comp. Wetstein: ‘tin tanta 


Christi sectatores per dei providentiam il- 
laesi servabuntur,” ‘‘In so great calamity 
inflicted upon the Jews, the enemies of 
Christ’s religion, in every place the follow- 
ers of Christ shall be preserved unharmed 
through the providence of God,” ete. 

® See, on the other hand, especially viii. 
11, xxii. 9f., xxv. 31 ff., xxviii. 19, ete: 


OHAP, -KXIV., 32. « 425 


Ver. 32 f. Cheering prospect for the disciples in the midst of those final 
convulsions—a prospect depicted by means of a pleasing scene taken from 
nature. The understanding of this passage depends on the correct inter- 
pretation (1) of 7 Gépoc, (2) of wavra raiza, and also (8) on our taking care 
not to supply anything we choose as the subject of éyyi¢ éorw éxi parc. — 
dé is simply petaParcxdv. —ar0 7H¢ ovKgjc] the article is generic ; for ax6, comp. 
on xi. 29. From the jig-tree, i.e., in the case of the fig-tree, see the parable 
(77 wap.) that is intended for your instruction in the circumstances referred 
to. For the article conveys the idea of your similitude ; here, however, 
rapaBoay means simply a comparison, tapaderxyua. Comp. on xiii. 8. — Kal ra 
obr2a éxdiy] and puts forth the leaves (the subject being 6 xAddoc). Matthaei, 
Fritzsche, Lachmann, Bleek, on the authority of EF GH KM V 4, Vulg. 
It., write éxgvg, taking it as an aorist, i.e., et folia edita fuerint.1 But in 
that case what would be the meaning of the allusion to the branches re- 
covering their sap? Further, it is only by taking x. 7. ¢. éxdty as present 
that the strictly definite element is brought out, namely : when the «Addoc is 
in the act of budding. — 76 6époc] is usually taken in the sense of aestas, after 
the Vulgate. But, according to the correct interpretation of révra Tavra, 
summer would be too date in the present instance, and too indefinite ; nor 
would it be sufficiently near to accord with éyyic¢ éotw éxi Oiparc. Hence 
it is better to understand the harvest* as referred to, as in Prov. xxvi. 1; 
Dem. 1253. 15, and frequently in classical writers.* It is not, however, 
the jig-harvest (which does not occur till August) that is meant, but the 
Jruit-harvest, the formal commencement of which took place as early as the 
second day of the Passover season. —oitw x. tueic] so understand ye also. 
For the preceding indicative, ywaoxere, expressed what was matter of com- 
mon observation, and so, in a way corresponding to the observation referred 
to, should (Qwvécx. imperative) the disciples also on their part understand, etc. 
— orav idnte xavta ravta] when ye will have seen all this. It is usual to seek 
for the reference of zdvra rairain the part of the passage before ver. 29, 
namely, in what Jesus has just foretold as to all the things that were to pre- 
cede the second coming. But arbitrary as this is, it is outdone by those 
who go the length of merely picking out a few from the phenomena in ques- 
tion, in order to restrict the reference of zavra raira to them ; as, for ex- 
ample, the inerementa malignitatis (Ebrard), or the cooling of love among be- 
lievers, the preaching to the Gentiles, and the overthrow of Jerusalem (Gess). 
If we are to take the words in their plain and obvious meaning (ver. 8), tavra 
ravra can only be understood to refer to what immediately precedes, therefore to 
what has been predicted, from that epoch-making ver. 29 on to ver. 31, re- 
specting the ajuciov of the Son of man, and the phenomena that were to accom- 
pany the second coming itself. When they shall have seen all that has been 
announced, vv. 29-31, they are to understand from it, ete. — ore éyyie éorev 
éxi Gipaic] To supply a subject here is purely arbitrary ; the Son ef man has 
been supposed by some to be understood (Fritzsche, de Wette, Hofmann, 


1 See, in general, Kiihner, I. p. 930 f. 3 Jacobs, ad Anthol. VIII. p. 857. Comp. 
* Equivalent to @episuos, Photius, p. 86, also Ebrard, Keim. 
18. 


426 THE GOSPEL OF MATTHEW. 


Bleek, Weiss, Gess) ; whereas the subject is 7d 6époc, which, there 
being no reason to the contrary, may also be extended to ver. 33. This 
Gépoc is neither the second coming (Cremer), nor the judgment (Ebrard), nor 
the kingdom of God generally (Olshausen, Auberlen), nor even the diffusion 
of Christianity (Schott), but simply the harvest, understanding it, however, 
in the higher Messianic sense symbolized by the natural harvest,’ namely, 
the reception in the Messianic kingdom of that eternal reward which awaits all 
true workers and patient sufferers. That is the joyful (Isa. ix. 2) and blessed 
consummation which the Lord encourages His disciples to expect immediately 
after the phenomena and convulsions that are to accompany His second 
advent.’ 

Ver. 34. Declaration to the effect that all this is to take place before the 
generation then living should pass away. The well-nigh absurd manner in 
which it has been attempted to force into the words 7 yevea airy such mean- 
ings as: the creation (Maldonatus), or : the human race (Jerome), or : the 
Jewish nation (Jansen, Calovius, Wolf, Heumann, Storr, Dorner, Hebart, 
Auberlen ;. see, on the other hand, on Mark xiii. 30), or: ‘‘the class of 
men consisting of my believer's” (Origen, Chrysostom, Theophylact, Euthym- 
ius Zigabenus, Clarius, Paulus, Lange), resembles the unreasonable way 
in which Ebrard, following up his erroneous reference of zdvra ravra (see 
on ver. 33), imports into the saying the idea : inde ab ipsorum (discipulorum) 
aetate omnibus ecclesiae temporibus interfutura, ‘from this generation of 
these (disciples) about to profit all times of the Church,” an imaginary view 
which passages like x. 28, xvi. 28, xxiii. 39, should have been sufficient to 
prevent. This also in opposition to the interpretation of Cremer : ‘‘ the 
generation of the elect now in question,” and that of Klostermann: ‘‘ the 
(future) generation which is to witness those events,” both of which are foreign 
to the sense. Comp. xxiii. 36.—The xdvra raira is the same as that of 
ver, 33, and therefore denoting neither the mere prognostics of the second 
advent, or, to be more definite, ‘‘ the taking away of the kingdom from Israel” 
(Gess), not specially the destruction of Jerusalem,* That the second 
advent itself is intended to be included, is likewise evident from ver. 36, in 
which the subject of the day and hour of the advent is introduced. 

Ver. 35. With the preceding ravra raira yévyra will commence the pass- 
ing away of the fabric of the world as it now exists (2 Pet. ii. 7, 8); but 
what I say (generally, though with special reference to the prophetic utter- 
ances before us) will certainly not pass away, will abide as imperishable truth 
(v. 18). The utterance which fails of its accomplishment is conceived of 
as something that perishes (Addit. Esth. vii. 2), that ceases to exist. Comp. 
éxrinrev, Rom. ix. 6. 

Ver. 36. The affirmation of ver. 34, however, does not exclude the fact 
that no one knows the day and hour when the second advent, with its 
accompanying phenomena, is to take place. It is to occur during the life- 
time of the generation then existing, but no one knows on what day or at what 


1 Gal. vi. 9 ; 2 Cor. ix. 6. the plural, see Kiihner, IT. 1, p. 17. 
2 On émi Ovpats without the article, see 3 Schott, E. J. Meyer, Hoelemann, Biium- 
Bornemann, ad Xen. Cyr. i. 3.2; and for lein in Klaiber’s Stud. I. 3, p. 41 ff. 


CHAP, XXIV., 37-41. 427 


hour within the period thus indicated. Accordingly it is impossible to tell 
you anything more precise in regard to this than what is stated at ver. 34. — 
el uy 6 Tat. wov povoc| This reservation on the part of the Father excludes 
even the incarnate Son (Mark xiii. 32). The limitation implied in our 
passage as regards the human side of our Lord’s nature is to be viewed in 
the same light as that implied in xx. 23. See, besides, on Mark xiii. 32. 

Vv. 37-39. But (dé, introducing an analogous case from an early period 
in sacred history) as regards the ignorance as to the precise moment of its 
occurrence, it will be with the second coming as it was with the flood. — 
jjoav . . . tpeyovrec] not for the imperfect, but to make the predicate more 
strongly prominent.'! tpéye means simply to eat (John vi. 54-58, xiii. 18), 
not devouring like a beast (Beza, Grotius, Cremer), inasmuch as such an 
unfavorable construction is not warranted by any of the matters afterwards 
mentioned. — yauowvrec x. éxyap.] uxores in matrimonium ducentes et filias col- 
locantes, descriptive of a mode of life without concern, and without any 
foreboding of an impending catastrophe. — kai oix ¢yvwoav| The ‘ it”? to be 
understood after éyvwcar is the flood that is so near at hand. Fritzsche’s 
interpretation : ‘‘ quod debebant intelligere” (namely, from seeing Noah 
build the ark), is arbitrary. The time within which it may be affirmed with 
certainty that the second advent will suddenly burst upon the world, can- 
not be supposed to refer to that which intervenes between the destruction of 
Jerusalem and the advent, a view precluded by the eiféu¢ of ver. 29. That 
period of worldly unconcern comes in just before the final consummation, 
ver. 15 ff., whereupon the advent is immediately to follow (vv. 29-82). 
This last and most distressing time of all, coupled with the advent imme- 
diately following it, forms the terminus ante quem, and corresponds to the 
mpd tov katakaAvouov of the Old Testament analogy. — év juépe 7] without 
repeating the preposition before 7 (John iv. 54).° 

Vv. 40, 41. Tére] then, when the second advent will have thus suddenly 
taken place. — rapadayBdverac] is taken away, namely, by the angels who are 
gathering the elect together, ver. 31. The use of the present tense here 
pictures what is future as though it were already taking place. But had 
this referred to the being caught up in the clouds, mentioned 1 Thess. iv. 17 
(Theophylact, Euthymius Zigabenus, Jansen), avadaudverac would have 
been used instead. — ad/erar] is left, expressing ot tapa2zauBdvera in its posi- 
tive form.‘ It is tantamount to saying : away! thou art not accepted. To 
understand the terms as directly the opposite of each other in the following 
sense : the one is taken captive, the other allowed to go free (Wetstein, 
Kuinoel), is grammatically wrong (rapaiau3. cannot, when standing alone, 
be taken as equivalent to bello capere, although it is used to denote the 
. receiving of places into surrender, in deditionem accipere, Polyb. ii. 54. 12, iv. 
63. 4, iv. 65. 6), and does violence to the context to suit the exigencies of 
the erroneous reference to the destruction of Jerusalem. Rather compare 


1 Comp. on Vii. 29. Stallbaum, ad Plat. Apol. p. 27 D. Comp. 
2 See Nagelsbach, J/iad, p. 120, ed. 3. ver. 50. 
3 Comp. Xen. Anabd. v. 7. 17, and Kiihner, 4 Comp. xxiii. 88, xv. 14; Soph. 0. #. 599. 


on the passage ; Winer, p. 393 [E. T. 524 f.] ; 


428 THE GOSPEL OF MATTHEW. 

John xiv. 3. It is no doubt admissible to interpret the expression in the 
hostile sense : the one is seized’ or carried off (iv. 5, 8; Num. xxiii. 27.; 
1 Mace. ili. 37, iv. 1), namely, to be punished. But the ordinary explana- 
tion harmonizes better with the reference to ver. 31, as well as with the 
subsequent parable, ver. 45 ff., where the mioré¢ dovdoc is first introduced. — 
dbo aAgOovoa, K.t.2.] of two who grind at the mill, one will, etc. For the con- 
struction, in which, by means of a perdBacie axd bAov eic wépn, the plural- 
subject is broken up into two separate persons.* If we were to adopt the 
usual course of supplying écovra: from ver. 40, we would require to translate 
as follows : two will be grinding at the mill. But this supplying of écovra is 
not at all necessary ; as may be gathered from the annexing of the parti- 
ciple, we have in this other case, ver. 41, just a different mode of presenting 
the matter. — aa76ovcea:] the hard work usually performed by the lower 
order of female slaves (Ex. xi.5; Isa. xlvii. 2; Job xxxi. 10; Eccles. 
xii. 3), and such as is still performed in the East by women, either singly or 
by two working together.’ A similar practice prevailed in ancient Greece, 
Hermann, Privatalterth. § 24. 8.1—év 76 baw] which is not to be con- 
founded (see the critical notes) with wiAwr. (a mill-house), is the millstone 
(xviii. 6) of the ordinary household hand-mill. It may denote the lower 
(Deut. xxiv. 6) as well as the upper stone (Isa. xlvii. 2), which latter would 
be more precisely designated by the term éxiuidcov (Deut. as above). It is 
the upper that is intended in the present instance ; the women sit or kneel 
(Robinson as above), hold the handle of the upper millstone in their hands 
(hence év 7. uw. : with the millstone), and turn it round upon the lower, 
which does not move. 

Ver. 42. Moral inference from vy. 36-41. Comp. xxv. 13. — The follow- 
ing o71, K.7.A. (because ye, etc.) is an emphatic epexegesis of ov. This exhor- 
tation is likewise based on the assumption that the second advent is to take 
place in the lifetime of the disciples, who are called upon to wait for it in 
an attitude of spiritual watchfulness (1 Cor. xvi. 13, 22). The idea of 
watchfulness, the opposite of security, coincides with that implied in the 
constant érowacia tov evayyeAiov (Eph. vi. 15). Comp. ver. 44.— oie] at 
what (an early or a late).® 

Ver. 43. But (that I may show you by means of a warning example how 
you may risk your salvation by allowing yourselves to be betrayed into a 
state of unpreparedness) know this, that if, etc. — 6 oixodeoréryc| the particular 
one whom the thief has anticipated. —ei jdec. . . éypyyopycev av] if he had 
been aware at what watch in the night the thief comes, to break into his house, he 
would have watched. But as he does not know the hour which the thief 


1 Polyb. ili. 69. 2; similarly Baumgarten- 3 Rosenmiiller, Morgenl. on Ex. xi. 5; and 


Crusius. 

2 Comp. Hom. Z/. vii. 306 f.: 
Oevte, Omev eta Aady’ Axar@y Hi’, 0 és Tpwwy 
ouadov Ke, “‘ So these two parted, the one 


Tw dé Staxpuv- 


went to the Achaean host, the other betook 


himself to the throng of the Trojans.” Plat. 
Phaedr. p. 248 A, al. ; see Dissen, ad Pind. 
Ol. viii. 37; also ad Dem. de cor. p. 237 f. 


on the present passage, Robinson, Paldst. 
II. p. 405 f. 

4 Hemsterhuis, ad Lucian. Tim. xxiii. On 
the unclassical aAjdew (for adecv). see Lo- 
beck, ad Phryn. p. 151. 

5 Comp. ver. 43; Rey. iii. 3; 1 Pet. i. 11; 
Eur. Jph. A, 815; Aesch. Ag. 278. 


CHAP. XXIV., 44-51. 42) 


chooses (it being different in different cases), he is found off his guard when 
the burglary is being committed. The rendering vigilaret (Luther, Kuinoel, 
Bleek, after the Vulg.) is incorrect. For the illustration of the thief, comp. 
HP RESH Ve oy ee ees dil, 10.) Rev. in. (3. xvis 15: 

Ver. 44. Aca rovro| in order that, as regards your salvation, your case may 
not be similar to the householder in question, who ought to have watched, 
although he did not know the @vAaxy of the thief. — kat ineic| as the house- 
holder would have been had he watched. — érouuo] spoken of their spiritual 
readiness for the second advent, which would take them by surprise (xxv. 
10; Tit. iii. 1). This preparedness they were to acquire for themselves 
(yiveobe). 

Ver. 45 f. Tic dpa, «.t.2.] who therefore, considering the necessity for pre- 
paredness thus indicated. The inference itself is presented in the form of 
an allegory, the dovdoc representing the disciples whom the Lord has 
appointed to be the guides of His church, in which they are required to 
show themselves faithful (1 Cor. iv. 1 f.) and prudent, the former by a dis- 
position habitually determining their whole behavior and characterized by 
devotion to the will of the Lord, the latter by the intelligent choice of ways 
and means, by taking proper advantage of circumstances, etc. The zic is not 
equivalent to ei tc (Castalio, Grotius), which it never can be ; but ver. 45 
asks : who then is the faithful slave? and ver. 46 contains the answer ; the 
latter, however, being so framed that instead of simply saying, in accord- 
ance with the terms of the question, ‘‘ itis he, whom his lord, on his return,” 
etc., prominence is given to the Odlessedness of the servant here in view. 
According to Bengel, Fritzsche, Fleck, de Wette, our question touchingly 
conveys the idea of seeking for: quis tandem, etc., ‘‘hune scire pervelim,” 
‘“ who then, etc., I would greatly desire to know this one.” 'To this, however, 
there is the logical objection, that the relative clause of ver. 45 would in 
that case have to be regarded as expressing the characteristic feature in the 
faithful and wise slave, whereas this feature is first mentioned in the relative 
clause of ver. 46, which clause therefore must contain the answer to the 
question, ric dpa éoriv 6 riotic 0. kK. op. — olKeteia, domestic servants.’ — obruc] 
thus, in accordance with duty assigned him in ver. 45 ; the principal em- 
phasis being on this word, it is put at the end of the sentence. 

Ver. 47. He will assign him a far higher position, setting him not merely 
over his domestics, but, ete. The ovuBaciAebew in the Messiah’s kingdom 
is represented as being in accordance with that principle of gradation on 
which faithfulness and prudence are usually rewarded in the case of ordi- 
nary servants.’ 

Vv. 48-51. ’Edv 62, «.7.2.] the emphasis is on 6 xaxéc as contrasting with 
6 morc K. dpdvimoc, ver. 45, therefore 6 dxoroc kK. a¢puv. — éxeivoc] refers back 
to bv Katéoryoev, x.T.A., ver. 45, and represents the sum of its contents. 
Hence : but suppose the worthless servant who has been put in that position 
shall have said, etc. To assume that we have here a blending of two cases 


1ZTucian, Mere. cond. 15; Strabo, xiv. p. Lobeck, ad Phryn. p. 505. 
668. Comp. oixeria, Symmachus, Job i. 3; 2 Comp. xxv. 21 ff. ; Luke xix. 17 ff. 


430 THE GOSPEL OF MATTHEW. 


(the servant is either faithful or wicked), the second of which we are to 
regard as presupposed and pointed to by éxeivog (de Wette, Kaeuffer), is to 
burden the passage with unnecessary confusion. —dp&yra:] will have begun, 
does not refer to the circumstance that the lord surprises him in the midst 
of his misdemeanors (Fritzsche), because in that case what follows would 
also have to be regarded as depending on dp&y7a, but on the contrary it 
brings out the fearless wickedness of the man abandoning himself to tyranni- 
cal behavior and sensual gratifications. —éo@in dé x. 7.] Before, we were 
told what his conduct was toward his fellow-slaves over whom he had been 
set ; now, on the other hand, we are shown how he behaved himself apart 
from his relation to the oixereia. — deyorounoes avtov] he will cut him in two,’ a 
form of punishment according to which the criminal was sawn asunder, 2 
Sam. xii. 31 ; 1 Chron. xx. 3 ; Heb. xi. 37.7 There is no force in the usual 
objection that, in what follows, the slave is assumed to be still living ; for, 
in the words xa? 76 pépo¢ avrov, k.t.2., Which are immediately added, we have 
a statement of the thing itself, which the similitude of that terrible punish- 
ment was intended to illustrate. All other explanations are inconsistent 
with the text, such as : he will tear him with the scourge (Heumann, Paulus, 
Kuinoel, Schott, de Wette, Olshausen), or: he will cut him off from his 
service (Beza, Grotius, Jansen, Maldonatus; comp. Jerome, Euthymius 
Zigabenus), or: he will withdraw his spiritual gifts from him (Basil, Theo- 
phylact), or generally : he will punish him with the utmost severity (Chrysos- 
tom). — Kail 7d pépoc aitod, K.7.2.] and will assign him his proper place among 
the hypocrites, i.e., he will condemn him to have his fitting portion in 
common with the hypocrites, that thenceforth he may share their fate.* 
Rabbinical writers likewise regard Gehenna as the portion of hypocrites ; 
see Schoettgen. But the expression rav iroxpir. is made use of here because 
the xaxd¢ dovdAoc is a hypocrite in the inmost depths of his moral nature, inas- 
much as he acts under the impression ypovifer pov 6 kipioc, though he hopes 
that when his lord arrives he will be able to assume the appearance of one 
who is still faithfully discharging his duty, just as he must have pretended 
to be good at the time when he received the trust which had been committed 
to him ; but now he is suddenly unmasked. — éxei] namely, in hell, viii. 12, 
xiii. 42, 50, xxii.. 13, xxv. 30. 


Remark 1.—It is exegetically certain that from ver. 29 onward Jesus an- 
nounces His second advent, after having spoken, in what precedes that verse, 
of the destruction of Jerusalem, and of that, too, as an event that was to take 
place immediately before His second coming. All attempts to obtain, for the 
eiféwe of ver. 29, a different terminus a quo (see on ver. 29), and therefore to find 
room enough before this evféw¢ for an interval, the limits of which cannot as 
yet be assigned, or to fix upon some different point in the discourse as that at 
which the subject of the second advent is introduced (Chrysostom : ver. 23 ; E. 
J. Meyer : ver. 35; Stisskind: ver. 36 ; Kuinoel: ver. 43 ; Lightfoot, Wetstein, 


1 Plat. Polit. p. 302 F; Polyb. vi. 28, 2; x. general, Wetstein and Rosenmiiller, Mor- 
ise BS Ddp.g o.o-ab:e ING genl., on our passage. 

2 Comp. Sueton. Calig. xvii.: ‘‘ medios 3Comp. on John xiii. 8, and the classical 
serra dissecuit.”” Herod. vii. 87. See, in phrase €v peéper trvds TiBec Oar, 


GIT AUP) XENON 431 


Flatt : not till xxv. 31; Hoelemann: as early as xxiv. 19), are not the fruits of 
an objective interpretation of the text, but are based on the assumption that 
every trifling detail must find its fulfilment, and lead to interpretations in 
which the meaning is explained away and twisted in the most violent way pos- 
sible. The attempts of Ebrard, Dorner, Cremer, Hoelemann, Gess, to show 
that the prediction of Jesus is in absolute harmony with the course of history, 
are refuted by the text itself, especially by ver. 29 ; above all is it impossible to 
explain vv. 15-28 of some event which is still in the womb of the future (in op- 
position to Hofmann, Schriftbew. II. p. 630 ff.) ; nor again, in ver. 34, can we 
narrow the scope of the ravra raira, or extend that of the yevea airy, or make 
yévnra denote merely the dawning of the events in question. 

Remark 2.—It is true that the predictions, ver. 5 fi., regarding the events 
that were to precede the destruction of Jerusalem were not fulfilled in so special 
and ample a way as to harmonize with the synoptical representations of them ; still, 
that they were so in all essential respects, is proved by what we learn from his- 
tory respecting the impostors and magicians that appeared, the wars that raged 
far and near, the numerous cases of famine and earthquake that occurred, the 
persecutions of the Christians that took place, the moral degeneracy that pre- 
vailed, and the way in which the gospel had been proclaimed throughout the 
world, and all shortly before the destruction of Jerusalem (after the Jews had 
begun to rise in rebellion against the Roman authority in the time of Gessius 
Florus, who became procurator of Judea in 64). This prophecy, though in 
every respect a genuine prediction, is not without its imaginative element, as 
may be seen from the poetical and pictorial form in which it is embodied. 
Compare on ver. 7, Remark. But it is just this mode of representation which 
shows that a valiciniwm post eventum (see on ver. 1) is not to be thought of. 
Comp. Holtzmann, Weizsiicker, Pfleiderer. 

Remark 3.—With regard to the difficulty arising out of the fact that the second 
advent did not take place, as Jesus had predicted it would, immediately after 
the destruction of Jerusalem,—and as an explanation of which the assump- 
tion of a blending of type and antitype (Luther) is arbitrary in itself, and only 
leads to confusion,—let the following be remarked : (1) Jesus has spoken of 
His advent in a threefold sense ; for He described as His second coming (a) that 
outpouring of the Holy Spirit which was shortly to take place, and which was 
actually fulfilled ; see on John xiv. 18 f., xvi. 16, 20 ff., also on Eph. ii. 17 ; (b) 
that historical manifestation of His majesty and power which would be seen, 
immediately after His ascension to the Father, in the triumph of His cause up- 
on the earth, of which Matt. xxvi. 64 furnishes an undoubted example ; (c) His 
coming, in the strict eschatological sense, to raise the dead, to hold the last 
judgment, and to set up His kingdom, which is also distinctly intimated in 
such passages of John as vi. 40, 54, v. 28, xiv. 3 (Weizel in the Stud. wu. Krit. 
1836, p. 626 ff.), and in connection with which it is to be observed that in John 
the dvastijow abrov tye TH éoxdty huépa (vi. 39 f., 44, 54) does not imply any such 
nearness of the thing as is implied when the spiritual advent is in question ; 
but, on the contrary, presupposes generally that believers will have to under- 
go death. Again, in the parable contained in Matt. xxii. 1-14, the calling of 
the Gentiles is represented as coming after the destruction of Jerusalem ; so 
that (comp. on xxi. 40 f.) in any case a longer interval is supposed to inter- 
vene between this latter event and the second coming than would seem to cor- 
respond with the ei9éw¢ of xxiv. 29. (2) But though Jesus Himself predicted 





432 THE GOSPEL OF MATTHEW. 


His second coming as an event close at hand, without understanding it, how- 
ever, in the literal sense of the words (see above, under a and b) ; though, in 
doing so, He availed Himself to some extent of such prophetical phraseology 
as had come to be the stereotyped language for describing the future establish- 
ment of the literal kingdom of the Messiah (xxvi. 64), and in this way made 
use of the notions connected with this literal kingdom for the purpose of em- 
bodying His conceptions of the ideal advent,—it is nevertheless highly con- 
ceivable that, in the minds of the disciples, the sign of Christ’s speedy entrance 
into the world again came to be associated and ultimately identified with the 
expectation of a literal kingdom. This is all the more conceivable when we 
consider how difficult it was for them to realize anything so ideal as an invisible 
return, and how natural it was for them to apprehend literally the figurative 
language in which Jesus predicted this return, and how apt they were, in conse- 
quence, to take everything He said about His second coming, in the threefold 
sense above mentioned, as having reference to the one great object of eager ex- 
pectation, viz., the glorious establishment of the Messiah’s kingdom. The 
separating and sifting of the heterogeneous elements that were thus blended 
together in their imagination, Jesus appears to have left to the influence of 
future development, instead of undertaking this task Himself, by directly 
confuting and correcting the errors to which this confusion gave rise (Acts i. 7, 
8), although we must not overlook the fact that any utterances of Jesus in this 
direction would be apt to be lost sight of—all the more, that they would not be 
likely to prove generally acceptable. It may likewise be observed, as bearing 
upon this matter, that the spiritual character of the Gospel of John—in which 
the idea of the advent, though not altogether absent, occupies a very secondary 
place as compared with the decided prominence given to that of the coming 
again in a spiritual sense—is a phenomenon which presupposes further teach- 
ing on the part of Jesus, differing materially from that recorded in the synoptic 
traditions. (3) After the idea of imminence had once got associated in the 
minds of the disciples with the expectation of the second advent and the 
establishment of the literal kingdom, the next step, now that the resurrection 
of Jesus had taken place, was to connect the hope of fulfilment with the prom- 
ised baptism with the spirit which was understood to be near at hand (Acts 
i. 6); and they further expected that the fulfilment would take place, and that 
they would be witnesses of it before they left Judea,—an idea which is most 
distinctly reflected in Matt. x. 23. Ex eventu the horizon of this hope came to 
be gradually enlarged, without its extending, however, beyond the lifetime of the 
existing generation. It was during this interval that, according to Jesus, the 
destruction of Jerusalem was to take place. But if he at the same time saw, 
and in prophetic symbolism announced, what He could not fail to be aware of, 
viz., the connection that there would be between this catastrophe and the 
triumph of His ideal kingdom, then nothing was more natural than to expect 
that, with Jerusalem still standing (differently in Luke xxi. 24), and the dura- 
tion of the existing generation drawing to a close, the second advent would 
take place immediately after the destruction of the capital,—an expectation 
which would be strengthened by the well-known descriptions furnished by the 
prophets of the triumphal entry of Jehovah and the disasters that were to pre- 
cede it (Strauss, II. p. 348), as well as by that form of the doctrine of the 
dolores Messiae to which the Rabbis had given currency (Langen, Judenth. in 
Palist, p. 494 £.). The form of the eapectation involuntarily modified the form 


CHAP. XXIV. 433 


of the promise ; the ideal advent and establishment of the kingdom came to be 
identified with the eschatological, so that in men’s minds and in the traditions 
alike the former gradually disappeared, while the latter alone remained as the 
object of earnest longing and expectation, surrounded not merely with the gor- 
geous coloring of prophetic delineation, but also placed in the same relation to 
the destruction of Jerusalem as that in which the ideal advent, announced in 
the language of prophetic imagery, had originally stood. Comp. Scherer in 
Strassb. Beitr. 11. 1851, p. 83 ff. ; Holtzmann, p. 409 f. ; Keim, ITI. p. 219 f.— 
Certain expositors have referred, in this connection, to the sentiment of the 
modern poet, who says: “‘the world’s history is the world’s judgment,’’ and have 
represented the destruction of Jerusalem as the first act in this judgment, 
which is supposed to be immediately followed (ver. 29) by a renovation of the 
world through the medium of Christianity,—a renovation which is to go on 
until the last revelation from heaven takes place (Kern, Dorner, Olshausen), 
But this is only to commit the absurdity of importing into the passage a poeti- 
cal judgment, such as is quite foreign to the real judgment of the New Testa- 
ment. No less objectionable is Bengel’s idea, revived by Hengstenberg and 
Olshausen (comp. also Kern, p. 56 ; Lange, II. p. 1258 ; Schmid, Bibl. Theol. I. 
p. 354), about the perspective nature of the prophetic vision,—an idea which 
could only have been vindicated from the reproach of imputing a false vision, 
z.e., an optical delusion, to Jesus if the latter had failed to specify a definite 
time by means of a statement so very precise as that contained in the ciféuc of 
ver. 29, or had not added the solemn declaration of ver. 34. Dorner, Witti- 
chen, rightly decide against this view. As a last shift, Olshausen has recourse 
to the idea that some condition or other is to be understood : ‘ All those things 
will happen, unless men avert the anger of God by sincere repentance,’ —a reserva- 
tion which, in a prediction of so extremely definite a character, would most cer- 
tainly have been expressly mentioned, even although no doubt can be said to 
exist as to the conditional nature of the Old Testament prophecies (Bertheau 
in the Jahrb. f. D. Theol. 1859, p. 335 ff.). If, as Olshausen thinks, it was the 
wish of the Lord that His second advent should always be looked upon as a 
possible, nay, as a probable thing,—and if it was for this reason that He spoke 
as Matthew represents Him to have done, then it would follow that He made 
use of false means for the purpose of attaining a moral end,—a thing even more 
inconceivable in His case than theoretical error, which latter Strauss does not 
hesitate to impute. According to this view, to which Wittichen also adheres, 
it is to the ethical side of the ministry of Jesus that the chief importance is to 
be attached. But it is precisely this ethical side that, in the case of Him who 
was the very depository of the intuitive truth of God, would necessarily be com- 
promised by such an error as is here in view,—an error affecting a prediction 
so intimately connected with His whole work, and of so much importance in 
its moral consequences. Comp. John viii. 46. 

Remark 4.—The statement of ver. 29, to the effect that the second advent 
would take place immediately after the destruction of Jerusalem, and that of 
ver. 34, to the effcct that it would occur during the lifetime of the generation 
then living, go to decide the date of the composition of our Greek Matthew, 
which must accordingly have been written at some time previous to the de- 
struction of the capital. Baur, indeed (Hvangelien, p. 605 ; Neut. Theol. p. 109), 
supposes the judgment that was immediately to precede the second advent to be 
represented by the Jewish war in the time of Hadrian, and detects the date of 


434 THE GOSPEL OF MATTHEW. 


the composition of our Gospel (namely, 130-134) in the (de. ri¢ épnude. of ver. 
15, which he explains of the statue of Jupiter which Hadrian had erected in 
the temple area (Dio Cass. Ixix. 12). Such a view should have been felt to be 
already precluded by vv. 1-3, where, even according to Baur himself, it is only 
the first devastation under Titus that can be meant, as well as by the parallel 
passages of the other Synoptists ; to say nothing, moreover, of the fact that a 
literal destruction of Jerusalem in the time of Hadrian, which is mentioned for 
the first time by Jerome in his comment on Ezek. v. 1, is, according to the 
older testimony of Justin, Ap. i. 47, and of Eusebius, iv. 6, highly question- 
able (Holtzmann, p. 405). But as regards the yevea, in whose lifetime the 
destruction of the capital and the second advent were (ver. 34) to take place, 
Zeller (in the Theol. Jahrb. 1852, p. 299 f.), following Baur and Hilgenfeld, ib. 
d. Ev. Justin’s, p. 367, has sought to make the duration of the period in 
question extend over a century and more, therefore to somewhere about the year 
130 and even later, although the common notion of a yeved was such that a 
century was understood to be equal to something like three of them (Herod. 
ii. 142; Thue. i. 14. 1; Wesseling, ad Diod. i. 24). The above, however, is an 
erroneous view, which its authors have been constrained to adopt simply to 
meet the exigencies of the case. For, with such passages before them as x. 
23, xvi. 28, neither their critical nor their dogmatical preconceptions should 
have allowed them to doubt that anything else was meant than the ordinary 
lifetime of the existing generation, the generation living at the time the dis- 
course was being delivered (the yeved 7 kata tov rapovta ypovov, Dem. 1390, 25), 
and that, too, only the portion of their lifetime that was still to run. Comp. 
Kahnis, Dogm. I. p. 494; Holtzmann, p. 408; Keim, p. 209; also Késtlin, p. 
114 ff. 


Notre spy AMERICAN EDITOR. 


XI. 


The difficulties in the interpretation of this chapter have been acknowledged 
by all commentators. It is admitted as beyond dispute that there is contained 
therein a prophecy of the destruction of Jerusalem, and also a prediction of 
Christ’s second coming to judge the world. All turns, however, upon the con- 
struction of ei$éwe, v. 29. Dr. Meyer properly insists that the attempts to twist 
this word from its proper meaning of ‘“‘immediately” are inconsistent with the 
laws of purely objective exegesis. ‘The question then recurs, How are we to ex- 
plain the promise of a second advent of the Son of God to follow at once upon the 
fall of Jerusalem? Some meet the difficulty boldly by declaring that Christ did 
so come in the life-time of that generation, and did gather His elect from their 
graves. This exposition is at once met by the objection that the gathering of 
the saints must, in that case, have been invisible. Dr. Terry, in his Herme- 
neutics, answers by saying: ‘‘ The sending forth of the angels, and the gather- 
ing of the elect, described in Matt. xxiv. 31, whatever its exact meaning, does 
not necessarily depict a scenic procedure visible to human eyes. If understood 
literally, it may, nevertheless, be only a verbal revelation of what took. place 
in such a supernatural manner as that no man might behold it and remain 
alive. It is said in vy. 40 and 41 that at the Parousia ‘two men shall be in 
the field : one is taken, and one is left ; two women shall be grinding at the 


NOTE. 435 


mill : one is taken, and one is left.’ In such a miraculous rapture of living saints 

(comp. 1 Thess. iv. 16, 17; 1 Cor. 15, 51, 52) the person left may not have 
been permitted to see the one taken.” ! The author of the Parousia thinks that 
the visible accomplishment of the destruction of Jerusalem may be accepted 
as a voucher for the invisible fulfilment of the rest of the prophecy ; that the 
one “‘is a presumption and guarantee in favor of the exact fulfilment of that 
portion which lies within the region of the invisible and spiritual, and which 
cannot, in the nature of things, be attested by human evidence.? To this scheme 
of interpretation the obvious reply is that it strains the sense of the passage, 
especially v. 30, quite as much as the forced construction of eiféwc in v. 29. 
For (1) the whole tenor of Scripture is against the thought that the second 
coming of Christ will be without the consciousness and knowledge of mankind, 
(2) To establish this interpretation, verse 30—‘‘and they [all the tribes of the 
earth] shall see the Son of man coming’’—must be taken wholly out of its 
obvious meaning. (3) In order to make this theory hold good, the formal judg- 
ment of the human race, described in chap. xxv. must be conceived as 
beginning with the fall of Jerusalem (see chap. xxv. 31). But the last verses 
of ch. xxv. are a description of the closing scene which marks the end of the 
Messianic reign. This construction of Christ’s discourse appears therefore still 
to leave its difficulties unsolved. 

Lange gives eiféw¢ its proper sense of ‘‘immediately,’’ but draws a distine- 
tion between the ‘great tribulation” of v. 21 and the ‘tribulation of those 
days” in v. 29. He says: ‘‘ The GAinbore tov juepav éxeivwv is not the same as the 
Oriwowe pweydan (ver. 21), which betokens the destruction of Jerusalem. It is 
rather a new §Amporc, in which the restrained days of judgment under the 
Christian dispensation issue (ver. 22), and which are especially characterized 
by the stronger temptations of pseudo-messianic powers. Thus, when this 
GAiwore of temptations has reached is climax (comp. 2 Thess. 4: 8; Rev. xiii., 
xiy.), then immediately (ei9éwc) the great catastrophe will come.’’? Thus we are 
brought back to the idea of a Messianic reign intervening between the fall of 
Jerusalem and the coming of Christ to judgment, an idea to which the Chris- 
tian mind instinctively clings. Dr. Meyer’s account of the threefold sense in 
which Jesus spoke of His coming may help us to construe the sense of the 
chapter (see remark 3, at end of ch. xxiy.), 


1 “ Biblical Hermeneutics,” pp. 447, 448. 
2 Quoted by Terry in ‘‘ Hermeneutics,” p. 453. 
3“ Commentary on Matthew,” p. 427. 


436 THE GOSPEL OF MATTHEW. 


CHAPTER XXV. 


Ver. 1.) ardvtqow] Lachm. and Tisch. 8: ixdvtqow, following B CX, 1, 
Method. Had this been the original reading, it would also have forced its way 
into ver. 6,in which latter, however, it is found only in 157, Cyr. — Ver. 2. 
Lachm. and Tisch. 8: révte dé €§ aitov yoav pepal cai révte opdvipor, following 
BCDLZ &, min. and vss. (also Vulg. It.). Considering what a preponder- 
ance of evidence is here, and seeing how ready the transcribers would be to 
place the wise first in order, the reading of the Received text must be regarded 
as a subsequent transposition. — Ver. 3. For airivec¢ there are found the 
readings (glosses) : ai dé in Z, Vulg. codd. of the It. Lachm., andai yap in BC 
L &, Tisch. 8; likewise ai ody in D.— Ver. 4. In witnesses of importance 
aivov is wanting after dyyeloic, so that, with Lachm. and Tisch, 8, it is to be 
deleted as a common interpolation. — Ver. 6. épyeTa] 1s wanting in such im- 
portant witnesses (B C* DL Z%&, 102, Copt. Sahid. Arpe, Cant. Method. Epbhr. 
Cyr.), and has so much the look of a supplement, that, with Lachm. and Tisch. 
8, it should’be erased. But the aivov after axdv7., which Tisch. 8 deletes, is 
wanting only in B &, 102, Meth. Cyr.—Ver. 7. For aizvév it is better, with 
Lachm. and Tisch., to read éav7ov, following AB LZ S&S, The reflective force 
of the pronoun had never been noticed, especially with ver. 4 preceding it, in 
which verse éavtov instead of airov after Aau7. (So Tisch. 8) is supported only 
by the evidence of B 8.— Ver. 9. For ovx, as in the Received text, there isa 
preponderance of evidence in favor of reading ov “7, which Griesb. has recom- 
mended, and which Lachm., Tisch. 7, and also Scholz have adopted. The uy, 
which Fritzsche and Tisch. 8 have discarded, was omitted from its force not 
being understood. — dé after xopedvecbe (in Elz., Tisch. 7) would be just as apt 
to be inserted as a connective particle, as it would be ready to be omitted if 
mopevedde, k.T.A., Was taken as the apodosis. Accordingly, the matter must be 
decided bya preponderance of evidence, and that is in favor of deleting the 
dé, — Ver. 11. «ai ai] Lachm, has simply ai, but against decisive evidence ; and. 
then think how readily «ai might be dropped out between TAI and AI! — Ver. 
13. After Gpav Elz. inserts év 7 6 vid¢ Tod avOpdérov Epyerat, words which, in 
accordance with a decided preponderance of evidence, are to be regarded as a 
gloss (xxiv. 44). — Ver. 16. — éroincev] A** BC DL S** min. : éxépdyoev. Rec- 
ommended by Griesb. and Schulz, adopted by Lachm. Gloss derived from 
what follows. —The omission of the second taddjavta -by Lachm. is without 
adequate authority, nor had the transcribers any motive for inserting it ; comp. 
ver. 17. — Ver. 17. ka? avtéc| is wanting in important witnesses, and is erased 
by Lachm. and Tisch. 8 ; but, owing to the circumstance of dcavtwc kai having 
preceded, it may very readily have been left out as superfluous and clumsy. — ~ 
Ver. 18, Lachm, inserts rdAavrov after év, only on the authority of A, It. ; but 


1The Codex Alex. (A) joins the list of xxv. It begins at ver. 6 with the word 
critical authorities for the first time at ch. efepxer ve, 


CHAP, XXV., 1. 437 


éxpvpev (Lachm. Tisch.) for dréxpupev is supported by such a preponderance of 
evidence that it is unnecessary to regard it as taken from ver. 25. — Ver. 19, 
It is better, with Lachm. and Tisch., to adopt in both cases the order zoddv 
xpovov and Adyov fer’ a’tov, in accordance with preponderating evidence. — 
Ver. 20. éx’ airoic] is omitted by Lachm. and Tisch. 8, both here and in ver. 
22, following BDL 8, min. and vss., while E G, min. read év airoic ; but D. 
Vulg. It. Or. insert érexépdyoa before the én’ adroic. Later variants are inter- 
pretations of the superfluous (and therefore sometimes omitted) éx’ abroic, — 
Ver. 21. dé, which Elz. inserts after é¢7, has been deleted, in accordance with 
preponderating evidence, as being an interpolation of the connective particle 
(so also Griesb., Scholz, Fritzsche, Lachm,, Tisch.).— Ver. 22. AaBdv] is wanting 
in ABC LAS, min. Syr."'- ; a few min. have ciAngdc. Deleted by Lachm. 
and Tisch. Correctly ; a supplement.— Ver. 27. For rd dpyup. pov Tisch. 
8 reads rad apy'pid wor, following B 8, Syr.p. Correctly ; the plural would be 
apt to be replaced by the singular (comp. Luke), because it is a question of one 
talent, and because of the 70 éudév following. — Ver. 29. axé 6% rot) BD L 8, 
min. : vov dé Approved by Griesb., adopted by Fritzsche, Lachm., Tisch. ; 
the ordinary reading is by way of helping the construction. — Ver, 30. é«@diere 
for éxaAAere (in Elz.) is confirmed by decisive evidence. — Ver. 31. Elz. Scholz 
insert dycot before dyyedol, in opposition to B D L II* 8, min. and many vss. 
and Fathers. An adjective borrowed from the ordinary ecclesiastical phrase- 
ology, and which, though it might readily enough be inserted, would scarcely 
be likely to be omitted. Comp. Zech. xiv. 5.— Ver. 40, rév ddeAgov pov] 
wanting only in B* and Fathers, Bracketed by Lachm. But comp. ver. 
45. — Ver. 41. oi xatnpau.) Tisch. 8 has deleted the article, in accordance with 
BL 8, and that correctly ; it is taken from ver. 34. 


Ver. 1 f. An additional exhortation to watchfulness in corsequence of 
the day and hour of the advent being unknown, and embodied in the para- 
ble of the ten virgins, extending to ver. 13, which parable is peculiar to 
Matthew (having been taken from the collection of our Lord’s sayings) ; 
for itis not the echoes of the present narrative, but something essentially 
different, that we meet with in Mark xiii. 35-87 and Luke xii. 35-38, — 
rére] then, t.e., on the day on which the master will return, and inflict con- 
dign punishment upon his worthless slave. Not: after inflicting this pun- 
ishment (Fritzsche), for the parable is intended to portray the coming of 
the Messiah ; but neither, again, is it to be taken as pointing back to ver. 37 
and ver. 14 of the previous chapter (Cremer), which would be an arbitrary 
interruption of the regular sequence of the discourse as indicated by rére. — 
duowwlncerar| will be made like, actually so ; see on vii. 26.—7 Baowd. Trav 
ovpav.| the Messianic kingdom, in respect, that is, of the principle of admis- 
sion and exclusion that will be followed when that kingdom comes to be 
set up. — é&7A0ov sic aravr. tov vuud.| Here the marriage is not represented as 
taking place in the house of the bridegroom, in accordance with the usual 
practice,’ but in that of the bride (Judg. xiv. 10), from which the ten 
bridesmaids set out in the evening for the purpose of meeting the expected 
bridegroom. The reason why the parable transfers the scene of the mar- 


1 Winer, Realw. I. p. 499; Keil, Arch. § 109, 


438 THE GOSPEL OF MATTHEW. 


riage to the home of the bride, is to be found in the nature of the thing to be 
illustrated, inasmuch as, at the time of His advent, Christ is to be under- 
stood as coming to the earth and as setting up His kingdom here below, and 
not in heaven. Comp. also the following parable, ver. 14 ff. — é57AGov] they 
went out, namely, from the bride’s house, which is self-evident from the con- 
text (ei¢ andyvtyow Tov vuudiov). Bornemann in the Stud. u. Krit. 1848, p. 
112 f.,-who, like the majority of expositors, supposes that what is here in 
view is the ordinary practice of conducting the bride from her own house 
to that of the bridegroom (but see on ver. 10),—and Ewald understand 
é&720ov of the setting out of the maids from their own homes to go to the 
house of the bride, in order to start from the latter for the purpose of meet- 
ing the bridegroom as he comes to fetch home his bride. But the meaning 
of the terms forbids us to assume different starting-points for é&746ov and ei¢ 
ardvtyow (Acts xxviii. 15) ; this is further precluded by the supposition, in 
itself improbable, that the foolish virgins could not have obtained a fresh 
supply of oil at the house of the bride. —Whether ten was the wswal number 
for bridesmaids cannot be determined ; but generally ‘‘ numero denario (as 
the base of their numeral system) gavisa plurimum est gens Judaica et in 
sacris et in civilibus,” ‘‘the Jewish race delighted for the most part in 
the number ten, both in sacred and in civil matters,” Lightfoot. Comp. 
Luke xix. 13. — ¢péviyor|.1 This second virtue belonging to a right érovpacia 
(see on xxiv. 55), viz. practical wisdom, is here intended to be made specially 
prominent. The idea of a contrast between chastity and its opposite 
(Cremer) is quite foreign to the context.’ 

Ver. 3. Airwe¢ popai] se. qoav, quotquot erant stultae. — iAaBov] they took, on 
setting out ; not for the pluperfect (Erasmus, Vatablus). — pe’ éavr@v| with 
themselves, namely, besides the oil that was burning in their lamps. 

Vv. 5, 6. The virgins, who, ver. 1, have left the house of the bride (in oppo- 
sition to Cremer and Lange, who suppose é£7A6ov to contain a prolepsis), and 
therefore are no longer there, have betaken themselves to some house on the 
way (éépyeobe, observe), in order there to await the passing by of the bride- 
groom ‘The coming of the latter was delayed on till midnight ; the maids 
who sat waiting began to get wearied, they nodded (aorist), and slept (im- 
perfect).* —idod 6 vuudioc (without épyera, see critical remarks) : behold the 
bridegroom ! The cry of the people who see him coming a little way off. 
They are made aware of his approach from seeing the light of the torches 
or lamps carried by those who accompanied him in the procession. 

Ver. 7 f. "Exécuncav] they put in proper order, namely, by trimming the 
wick and such like, they dressed them. — éavrav (see critical remarks) : each 
one her own ; betokening the individual preparation that was now going on. 





— oBévverrac| are just on the point of going out. 

Ver. 9. Marore . . . tyuiv| Since ov w# is the correct reading (see critical 
remarks), and seeing that the dpxécy following cannot be regarded as 
dependent on pArore, but only on ov uA, the punctuation should be as fol- 


1Comp. xxiv. 45, vii. 24, 26. 3 Comp. Isa. y. 27; Ps. xxi. 4. Vulgate: 
2 Comp. xopdovoy dpdvizov, Tob. vi. 12. “ dormitaverunt omnes et dormierunt.”’ 


CHAP. xxy., 10-14. 439 
lows : u#rote’ ov pa apkéon, K.T.A. : never (shall we give you of our oil) : 
there will certainly not be enough for us and you |? 

Ver. 10 f. While they were going away, came (not : advenerat, Fritzsche). 
— eio#/Oov per’ aitov] namely, into the house of the bride, whither the 
bridegroom was on his way, and to which the maids were conducting him, 
with a view to the celebration of the marriage. The idea of the bridegroom’s 
house being that referred to (see on ver. 1) is precluded by the correlation 
in which 7Adev 6 vuugiog and cic7APov per’ abrov stand to each other. — kipue, 
kipre| expressive of most urgent and anxious entreaty. Comp. vii. 21. 

Ver. 12 f. Ov« oida iuac] because ye were not amongst the bridesmaids who 
welcomed me, ye are to me as entire strangers whom I do not know, and 
who, therefore, can have no part in the marriage! The knowledge of ex- 
perience arising out of the intercourse of life (vii. 23 ; 1 Cor. vill. 3, xiil. 
12; Gal. iv. 9) is the point intended to be thus éllustrated. Besides, Jesus 
might also have said (in opposition to Cremer) : ovb« éyvwv iu. (I have not 
known you). — oiv| because the foolish virgins were shut out, and because 
something corresponding to this would happen to you unless you watch.— 
According to ver. 13, the teaching of the parable is: that the moral prepared- 
ness that continues to maintain itself wp till the moment of the advent, the day 
and hour of which do not admit of being determined, will lead to participation 
in the Messianic kingdom, whereas those in whom this preparedness has not been 
maintained till the end will, when surprised by the sudden appearing of the 
Lord, experience in themselves the irreparable consequences of their foolish 
neglect, and be shut out from His kingdom. This latter is a negative expres- 
sion of condemnation, not, as Olshausen supposes, notwithstanding the éx/eicty 
7 Oipa, merely a way of designating sucha salvation asis spoken of in 1 Cor. 
ili. 15. More specific interpretations—of the virgins, the lamps, the oil, the 
kpavyy, etc.—are to be found not only in Origen, Hilary, Cyril, Chrysostom, 
Theophylact, Euthymius Zigabenus, Augustine, Jerome,? but also in Ols- 
hausen, von Meyer, Cremer, Lange, Auberlen. In those interpretations 
subjective opinion has, in most diverse and arbitrary fashion, exceeded 
the limits indicated by Jesus in ver. 13.8 Neither is the falling asleep of 
the virgins intended to be specially significant ; for, as it happened in the 
case of the exemplary wise ones as well, it cannot represent any moral short- 
coming. 

Ver. 14. The parable of the talents, extending to ver. 30,* is introduced as 


1¥For the absolute negative «7, comp. vessels, in oil. And yet the real sum of 


Xxvi. 5; Ex. x. 11; Matthiae, p. 1454; 
Kiihner, Il. 2, p. 1047. Correctly Borne- 
mann, as above, p. 110; Bleek, Lange, Lu- 
thardt. Comp. Winer, p. 556 [E. T. 632] ; 
Ellendt, Zex. Soph. Il. p. 107. 

2 See Cremer, p. 156 ff. 

3 Calvin well remarks: ‘‘ Multum se tor- 
quent quidam in lucernis, in vasis, in oleo. 
Atqui simplex et genuina summa est, non 
sufficere alacre exigui temporis studium, 
nisiinfatigabilis constantia simul accedat,”’ 
“Some torment themselves in lamps, in 


the matter is, that active zeal for a brief 
period does not suffice, unless unflagging 
constancy be added.” 

4In connection with this parable, com- 
pare the following traditional sayings at- 
tributed to Christ : yiveode tpamegirac Soxipot, 
“Show yourselves tried money-changers” 
(Hom. Clem. ii. 51, iii. 50, xviii. 20, ete. 5 
Clement of Alexandria, Origen ; Aposiolical 
Constitutions); and év ols av mas KaTadaBw, 
év tovTo.s Kat Kpivo, “In whatsoever I may 
find you, in this also will I judge you” 


440 THE GOSPEL OF MATTHEW. 


an additional ground for the ypyyopeire, and that by viewing it as a question 
of work and responsibility. The parable in Luke xix. 12 ff., which, not- 
withstanding the differences in regard to individual features, resembles the 
present in its leading thoughts and illustrations, is to be regarded as a 
modification, arising in the course of the Gospel tradition, of the more orig- 
inal and simpler one before us (in opposition to Calvin, Olshausen, Neander, 
Holtzmann, Volkmar), and which Luke also represents as having been 
spoken at adifferent time.’ In this latter Gospel we have what was originally 
an independent parable (that of the rebellious subjects) blended with that of 
the talents.?. If it be maintained, as Kern, Lange, Cremer are disposed to 
do, that in Matthew and Luke we have two distinct parables, spoken by 
Jesus on two different occasions, then there is no alternative but either to 
accept the unnatural view that the simpler (Matthew’s) is the later form, or 
to suppose, in opposition to what is recorded, that Jesus spoke the parable in 
Matthew, where, however, the connection is perfectly apposite, somewhat 
earlier than that in Luke (Schleiermacher, Neander). The one view as well 
as the other would be all the more questionable, that the interval during 
which Christ ‘‘ intentionally employs the same parabolic materials for the 
purpose of illustrating different subjects” (Auberlen) would thus comprise 
only a few days. Mark xiii. 34 is extracted from what Matthew has taken 
from the collection of our Lord’s sayings. — @orep, x.7.A.] a case of ananta- 
podosis similar to that of Mark xiii. 34, and doubtless reproducing what 
already appeared in the collection of sayings from which the passage is 
taken. Comp. Rom. v. 12. Fritzsche on ver. 10. At the outset of the 
discourse it would be the intention to connect the whole parable with éozep, 
and, at the conclusion, to annex an apodosis by means of oitwe (probably 
ovrw kal 6 vide tr. dvOpdrov rowfoet, OY ovTWC éoTaL Kal 7 Tapovoia T. viod T. avOp.) 5 
but, considering the somewhat lengthened character of the parable, this had 
to be omitted. — arodyju.| on the point of going abroad (xxi. 38). —rod¢ 
idiovc dot'Aove| not strangers, such as exchangers, but his own servants, of 
whom, therefore, he had a right to expect that they would do their best to 
lay out for his advantage the money entrusted to them. 

Ver. 15. Kara ry idiay divauev| not arbitrarily, therefore, but according to 
each one’s peculiar capabilities’ for doing business. The different charismatic 
gifts are bestowed in a manner corresponding to the varying natural apti- 
tudes of men. Those endowments are conferred according to an individu- 
alizing principle. — evbéwc] immediately, therefore without making any 
further arrangements for disposing of the money. Fritzsche, Rinck, and 
Tisch. 8 agree with B and several codd. of the It. in connecting ei#éw¢ with 
what follows. In that case it would be necessary either to insert the dé of 
ver. 16 before ropevd. (8**), or, with Tisch., to delete it altogether (x*). 


(Justin, c. Tr. 47). Eusebius gives a kin- Bleek, Keim, Weiss, 1864, p. 128 ff. 


dred parable from the Gospel of the 3 “*Prudentia et peritia,” Beza. 

Hebrews, and for which see Mai’s ova 4“Nemo urgetur ultra quam potest,” 

patrum biblioth. TV. p. 155. “no one is burdened beyond that which he 
1Comp. Weizsacker, p. 181. is able,’’ Bengel. 


2 Strauss, I. p. 636 f.; Ewald, p. 419 f.; 


CHAP. XXV., 16-24. 44] 


However, the evidence in favor of this view is quite inadequate. And it is 
precisely in connection with aredjuyoev that evféwc is seen to have a peculiar 
significance, that, namely, of showing that absolute independence was 
allowed in regard to the way in which the money was to be employed by 
those to whom it had been entrusted, which is admirably in keeping with 
Kata THY idiay divauv. — TaAarra] see On XVill. 25. 

Ver. 16. Eipydcaro] traded with them (év avroic, instrumental). Very com- 
mon in classical writers (especially Demosthenes) with reference to commerce 
and matters of exchange, though usually with the simple dative of the in- 
strument. — éxoinoev] he acquired, gained ; as in German : er machte Geld (he 
made money).’ 

Ver. 18. ’AreA06v] he went away, removed to a distance. How entirely 
different in the case of the first two, ver. 16! They started upon a journey 
(xopev0). — dpugev év t. yn] he digged, i.e., he made a hole in the earth. The 
reading yjv, which Tisch. adopts, following BL & (C* : 7v yjv), but from 
which the vss. deviate, would mean : he dug up the earth (Plat. Euthyd. p. 
288 E).—7ré apyip. tov kup. avr.] brings out emphatically the idea of re- 
sponsibility and dereliction of duty. ; 

Ver. 20 f. ’Ex’ aitoic] in addition to them ; comp. on Col. ili. 14. The ide 
points the master to what had been gained ; the boldness of a good con- 
science. — ei] is generally taken absolutely: excellent! that is right! But 
this would have required eiye,* which reading (taken from Luke xix. 17, 
where eiye is the original one) Fritzsche actually adopts, following A*, Vulg. 
It. Or. (once). Consequently we should connect eb with je xiord¢ : Thow 
wast admirably (probe) faithful in regard to a little. For ei when separated from 
the word to which it belongs, comp. Xen. Cyr. i. 6.24 ; Mem. ii. 1. 83, and 
Kiihner thereon. ’Ayalé and zicré represent the genus and species of an up- 
right character. The opposite of this : ver. 26. — ei¢ rv yapav Tov Kupiov 
cov] yapa is not to be understood of a feast,* a sense in which the word is not 
used,* and which the context does not sanction any more than it counte- 
nances the idea of a festival in honor of the master’s return (in opposition to 
de Wette and Lange) ; but what is meant is that the slave is invited to par- 
ticipate in the happiness which his master is enjoying,® thus exhibiting the 
thought of Rom. viii. 17. The use of the expression ciceAée is, in that case, 
to be regarded as due to the nature of the thing which the parable is meant 
to illustrate (the Messianic kingdom). 

Ver. 24 f. “Eyver oe, ze] well-known attraction.° The aorist is not used 
here in the sense of the perfect I know thee (Kuinoel), but : I knew thee, and 
hid.—What follows characterizes, in proverbial language (by a figure taken 
from farming), a man wneonscionably hard to please, and demanding more 


than is reasonable. — ovvdywr Sfev ov diecxdpx.| gathering (corn into the azo- 
1 See instances in Wetstein and Kypke. 4LXX. Esth. ix, 17is an inaccurate ren- 
So also the Latin facere. dering. 
2 Plat. Gorg. p. 494 C; Lach. p. 181 A; 5 Chrysostom admirably : thy tacav paxa- 
Soph. PAil. 327. pidtyra dua ToD pywatos TovTOv Setkvus, ** Show- 


3 Clericus, Schoettgen, Wolf, Michelsen, ing by this word the whole blessedness.”’ 
Kuinoel, Schott. 6 Winer, p. 581 [E. T. 781]. 


442 THE GOSPEL OF MATTHEW. 


Ain) from a place where you have not threshed (with reference to the threshing- 
floor of another man’s farm). draoxoprifew, to scatter so as to separate from 
each other,* is expressly used in the present instance, because it forms a better 
contrast to cvvdywv than Avcuav (xxi. 44). If it were to be taken as equiva- 
lent to creipew, the result would be a tautological parallelism (in opposition 
to Erasmus, Beza, de Wette).—The entire excuse is a false pretext invented 
by moral indolence,—a pretext which is reduced ad absurdum in vv. 26, 
27. — doBnbeic] namely, of losing the talent in business, or of not being able 
to satisfy thee. —7d cdr] self-righteous. 

Ver. 26 f. The master chastises the worthless and indolent (Rom. xii. 11) 
servant with his own weapons. — 7decc, x.7.. | question of astonishment, which 
is more spirited and more in keeping with the surprising nature of the 
excuse than to understand the words in a conceding sense (Kuinoel, de 
Wette), or as an independent hypothesis,” in which case the ody of the apo- 
dosis would be deprived of its force.*— Bareiv . . . toic tpazel.| flinging 
down upon the table of the money-changers, represents the indifference of the 
proceeding. — éyé] is emphatic as related to the preceding ide, éyee 76 adv, 
ver, 25. To it likewise corresponds 76 éuév, to which, however, civ réxw is 
now added for sake of emphasis. 

Vv. 28-30. Oiv] because his conduct was so inexcusable. — Ver. 29. Justi- 
fication of this mode of proceeding, by appealing to a principle founded on 
universal experience, and which was to find its verification in the case 
before us. Comp. xiii. 12.—rov dé pj éxovroc] see critical remarks. The 
genitive, here placed first for sake of emphasis, might be regarded as de- 
pendent on ap@jcera (Fritzsche), in accordance, that is, with the construc- 
tion of verbs of depriving with twvé¢ 7 (Kitihner, II. 1, p. 282). Inasmuch, 
however, as the a7’ avrov which follows would thus be superfluous and 
clumsy, it is better to take the genitive as absolute: as for him who has not 
(the poor man).* We thus obtain ‘‘ duobus membris factis ex uno oppositio 
nervosior,” **two members being made a@ more vigorous opposition from one.” * 
For 6 éywv, the rich man, comp. Isocr. vii. 55 and Benseler thereon. — For 
ver. 80, comp. viii. 12, xiii. 42, 50, xxii. 13, xxiv. 51. The verse is not 
here out of place, but acquires a certain solemnity from its resemblance to 
the conclusion of ch. xxiv. (in opposition to Weiss, 1864, p. 129). 

Teaching of the parable.—By a faithful use, after my departure, of those 
varied endowments which I have bestowed on each of you according to his 
special capacity, you are to do your utmost to promote my cause. For when 
I return and reckon with you (ver. 19), then those who have exerted them- 
selves in a dutiful manner will receive a distinguished reward in the king- 
dom of the Messiah ; but those who have allowed their gifts, however 
small, to lie unused, will be deprived of that which has been entrusted to 
them, and be cast into Gehenna. For more minute and specific interpreta- 
tions, all of them of a more or less arbitrary character, see Origen, Chry- 


1 For the classical character of which ex- Klotz, ad Devar. p. 718 f. 
pression see Lobeck, ad Phryn. p. 218. 4 Comp. Thue. v. 18. 8, and Kruger there- 
2 Bernhardy, p. 385. on. 


3See Hartung, Partikedl. II. p. 22 f.; 5 Dissen, ad Dem. de cor. p. 272. 


CHAP! XKV, oi 443 


sostom, Theophylact. The reference to all Christian endowments generally 
(1 Cor. xii.), is to be regarded rather as an application of the parable in a 
more comprehensive sense. 

Ver. 31 ff. It is unnecessary to suppose that this utterance about the judg- 
ment—an utterance taken, like the preceding, from the collection of our 
Lord’s sayings (Aéya)—should be immediately connected with xxiv. 30 f. 
(Fritzsche, de Wette) or with xxiv. 51 (Ewald). The coming of the Mes- 
siah and His judicial dealing with His servants had been portrayed imme- 
diately before, and now the prophetic glance extends and takes in the judg- 
ment of all nations,—a judgment which is to be presided over by the Lord 
when He returns in His glory. This is the grand closing scene in which the 
eschatological predictions-are all to be realized, and depicted too with a sim- 
plicity and beauty so original that there is but the less reason for imagining 
that this discourse about the judgment is the product of the apostolic period 
(Hilgenfeld, Volkmar, Scholten, Wittichen, Keim). —It is wswal to under- 
stand those who are being judged as representing men generally, Christians and 
non-Christians alike,’ Bleek arbitrarily assuming that the evangelists have 
extended the application of what originally referred only to Christians. On 
the other hand, Keil? and Olshausen, as well as Baumgarten-Crusius, 
Georgii,* Hilgenfeld, Weizsiicker, Volkmar, Keim, Wittichen, Auberlen, 
Cremer, understand all who are not Christians to be referred to, some of them, 
however, expressly excluding the Jews. But non-Christians could not 
have been intended, because it would be improper to say that the Mes- 
sianic kingdom has been prepared for such, to say nothing of the ard xara- 
Bodje kécnov, ver. 34, in which the idea of the éxAexroi is exclusively involv- 
ed ; further, because it would be no less improper to suppose, without 
more ado, that non-Christians are intended by the oi dicacoc of ver. 87, which 
latter we are not at liberty to understand in a generalized sense, but only as 
equivalent to the elect ; again, because those things which Jesus represents 
(vv. 35, 36, 60) as manifestations of love toward Himself cannot possibly be 
conceived of as done by those who, nevertheless, continued to remain out- 
side the Christian community ; finally, because both sides of the assemblage 
use such language (vv. 37 ff., 44) as compels us to acknowledge their belief 
in the Judge before whom they now stand. Their language is the expression 
of a consciousness of their faith inthe Messiah, towards whom, however, 
they have had no opportunity of displaying their love. If the Messianic 
Jelicity were here adjudged to pure heathens according to the way in which 
they may have acted toward Christians (Hilgenfeld), this would be to 
suppose a ‘‘remarkable toleration” (Keim) altogether at variance with the 
whole tenor of the New Testament, and such as even Rev. xxi. 244 does not 
countenance, —a humanity which does not need faith, because it compen- 
sates for the want of it by its love.® If, after all this, we cannot 


1See, among modern expositors, Kuinoel, Anal. 1813, III. 177 ff. 


Fritzsche, de Wette, Lange, Weizel, as 3 In Zeller’s Jahrb. 1845, p. 18 f. 
above, p. 603; Kaeuffer, de Gwijs atwv. not. p. 4 See Diisterdieck on that passage. 
44; Hofmann, Schriftbew. p. 645. 6 Volkmar, p. 546. 


2In the Opuse., ed. Goldh. p. 136 ff., and 


444 THE GOSPEL OF MATTHEW. 


suppose that a judgment of non-Christians is here meant, we may even. 
go still further, and say that non-Christians are not included at all, 
and so we must also reject the view usually adopted, since Chrysostom and 
Augustine, that what is here exhibited is a judgment of all men, believers 
and unbelievers alike. For, so far from the mention of the divine éxioy#, 
ver. 34, or the idea of the dixaio, ver. 37, or what Jesus says at ver. 35, or 
the answer of those assembled before the Judge, vv. 37 and 44, or the entire 
omission generally of any distinction between belief and unbelief, harmo- 
nizing with the notion of a mixed body consisting of Christians and non- 
Christians, they entirely exclude the the latter. We should therefore return 
to the very old view (Lactantius,' Jerome, Euthymius Zigabenus), which, 
though it had been neglected in consequence of the prevalent eschatology, 
was preserved by Grotius, the view, namely, that what Jesus is here depict- 
ing is the judgment of Christians.? All the points previously adduced as ar- 
guments against the other explanations combine to favor this view. It is 
confirmed by the whole fundamental idea on which the Judge’s sentence 
turns (the determining principle being the love manifested toward Jesus), 
by the figure of the shepherd and his sheep, and finally, and at the same 
time somewhat more definitely, by the fact that those who are being judged 
are called rdvra ra é0vy. For the latter words are not intended to limit the 
reference expressly to the Gentiles, but they are to be taken as assuming the 
realization of the universality of Christianity by the time of the advent when 
all the nations of the earth ( é0vy, as expressing the idea of nation, does not 
exclude the Jews ; comp. xxviii. 19, xxiv. 9, and see on John xi. 50) will 
have heard the gospel and (to a proportionable degree) received Christ 
(xxiv. 14; Rom. xi. 25). Jesus, then, is here describing the universa 
judgment of those who have believed in Him, in whom, as they will be 
gathered around His throne, His prophetic glance beholds all the nations of 
the world (xxvii. 19). Comp., for the judgment of Christians, 2 Cor. v. 
10; Rom. xiv. 10. The judgment of unbelievers (1 Cor. xv. 23, vi. 2 ; 
comp. on xix. 28), who are not in question at present, forms a distinct 
scene in the universal assize ; and hence in the preceding parable also the 
reference is to His servants, therefore to believers. Neither here nor in the 
passages from Paul do those different judgment scenes presuppose anything 
in the shape of chiliastic ideas. The Messianic judgment is one act consist- 
ing of two scenes, not two acts with achiliastic interval coming in between.?® 
— ravtec ol dyyedot] ‘omnes angeli, omnes nationes ; quanta celebritas !” 
‘Call angels, all nations ; how great publicity !’ Bengel. — ra rpé3ara ard 
tov épigwv| sheep and goats (Ecclus. xlvii. 3.; Gen. xxxviii. 17) are here rep- 
resented as having been pastured together (comp. Gen. xxx. 33 ff.). The 
wicked are conceived of under the figure of the ép:éo., not on account of the 
wantonness and stench of the latter (Grotius), or in consequence of their 
stubbornness (Lange), but generally because those animals were considered 
to be comparatively worthless (Luke xv. 29); and hence, in ver. 33, we 


1 Instit. vii. 20. (is) there,” Euthymius Zigabenus, who 
2 rept Tov Xpirtiavav S& povwy o Aoyos evTav- proves this, above all, from vv. 35, 36. 
da, ‘* concerning Christians alone the word 3 See, on the other hand, xiii. 37 


CHAP. XXV., 34-37. 445 
have the diminutive ra épig:a for the purpose of expressing contempt. -- For 
the significance attached to the right and left side (Eccles. x. 2), see Schoett- 
gen and Wetstein on our passage." 

Ver. 34. ‘0 Baovdeic] because Christ is understood to have appeared év rH 
Baotdeia avrov, xvi. 28, which fact is here self-evident from ver. 31. —oi 
eviAoynuévoe Tov xatpoc pov| the blessed of my Father (for ‘tin Christo electi 
sumus,” Bengel), now actually so (see on Eph. i. 3) by being admitted into 
the Messianic kingdom that has been prepared for them.? — jrouacpévyy | 
not merely destined, but: put in readiness; comp. xx. 23; 1 Cor. ii. 9; 
John xiv. 2.° This «Anpovoyia is the fulfilment of the promise of v. 5, 
KAnpovounoover tHV yyv. Comp. xix. 29. — a7 xaraf. «.] xiii. 85, not equiva- 
lent to pd «. «., when the election took place (Eph. i. 4 ; 1 Pet. i. 20).* 

Ver. 35 f. Suvyyayeré we] ye have taken me along with, introduced me, that 
is, into your family circle along with the members of your family. This 
meaning, but not that of Fritzsche: ‘‘ simul convivio adhibuistis,” is in- 
volved in the idea of Févoc.® For instances of Rabbinical promises of para- 
dise in return for hospitality, see Schoettgen and Wetstein.—yrpv6c] ‘* Qui 
male vestitum et pannosum vidit, nwdwm se vidisse dicit,” ‘‘ He who saw 
thee badly clad and ragged says that He saw thee naked,” Seneca, de benef. 
Nagone 

Ver. 37 ff. Not mere modesty (not even, according to Olshausen, uncon- 
scious modesty), but an actual declining with humility, on the ground that 
they have never rendered the loving services in question to Christ Himself ; 
for they do not venture to estimate the moral value of those services accord- 
ing to the lofty principle of Christ’s unity with His people, xviii. 5, x. 40. 
The Lord Himself then explains what He means, ver. 40. Hence it does 
not follow from this passage that these dixasoc ‘Shave not as yet been con- 
sciously leading the New Testament life’ (Auberlen, Cremer). Bengel well 
remarks : ‘‘ Fideles opera bona sua, impil mala, ver. 44, non perinde aesti- 
mant ut judex,” ‘‘ the faithful do not estimate their good deeds, the wicked 
their bad (ver. 44), as the Judge does.” —7ére of eidouev] three times, ear- 
nestly, honestly. — é’ dcov] in quantum, inasmuch as ; see on Rom. xi. 13. — 
éxoijoave| ye have done it, namely, the things previously mentioned. — évi 
TobTwv Tav adeAGav pov Tav éAayiotwv] to a single one of these my brethren, and 
that of the most insignificant of them. Those words, which are referred by 
Keil, Olshausen, Georgii, Hilgenfeld, Keim (see on ver. 31 f.), to Christians 
in general ; by Cremer, to the elect ; by Luthardt, to the Christian church 
in its distress ; by Auberlen, to their poor miserable fellow-men,’—do not ad- 








1 Hermann, Gottesd. Alierth. § xxxviii. 9 f. 
Comp. Plat. Rep. p. 614 C; Virg. Aen. vi. 
542 £. 

2 On the use of the participial substantive 
with a genitive, see Lobeck, ad Aj. 358; 
Winer, p. 178 [E. T. 236]. 

3 Kai ovk elme: AdBeTe, dAAG* KANpovonyoate, 
0s OiKEia, WS TaTPwA, WS UMETEPA, WS VILLY avwtev 
oderdoueva, “He did not say, take, but, in- 
herit, as one’s own, as your Father’s, as 
yours, as due from the first,’? Chrysostom. 


4¥For the order of the words, comp. 
Kiihner, ad Xen. Ana, iv. 2. 18. 

5 For gvvayw, aSused with reference toa 
single individual who is gathered in along 
with others, comp. Xen. Cyrop. v. 3. 11; 
LXX. Deut. xxii. 2; 2 Sam. xi. 27; Judg. 
xix. 18; Heclus. xiii. 15. 

6 Jas. ii. 15. Comp. on John xxi.7; Acts 
xix. 16. 

7 Comp. de Wette, Ullmann in the Stud. 
u. Krit. 1847, p. 164 ff. 


446 THE GOSPEL OF MATTHEW. 


mit of being also referred to the apostles (xxvii. 10; 1 Cor. iv. 13), to 
whom, as surrounding His judgment-throne, Christ is supposed to point ; 
for the amount of love shown to the apostles cannot be taken as the univer- 
sal standard of judgment; and though the apostles themselves, appearing 
here, as they do, in their relation to the rest of Christians, may well be 
called the brethren of Christ (xxviii. 10 ; John xx. 17) ; yet they would cer- 
tainly not be described by Him as the least of such brethren. No; as 
during His earthly life Christ is always surrounded by the obscure and de- 
spised (the poor, the humble, publicans and sinners, and such like), who 
seek their salvation through Him ; so He also represents Himself as still 
surrounded by such as these on the occasion of the judgment (comp. Ewald, 
p- 420). In consequence of their longing after Him, and of their love for 
Him, and the eternal salvation to be found in Him (as jyannkdre¢ tiv émipd- 
veav avrov, 2 Tim. iv. 8), they here come crowding around the throne of 
His glory ; and to these He now points. They are the rrwyoi, revovvtec, 
xpacic, Seduoyuévor of the Sermon on the Mount, who are now on the point of 
receiving the promised bliss. 

Ver. 41. 0% katnpapuévoc] opposite of of eiAoynuévor. This consigning to 
everlasting destruction is also a reality, and the doing of God. But the 
words rov rarpé¢ pov are omitted this time, because the idea of rarfp accords 
only with the loving act of blessing. The divine kardpa is the effect of holy 
wrath and the consequence of human guilt. —r0 7rowacuévov] not this time 
ard KataBoage xéouov ; this the hearer knew as matter of course. The Rab- 
bins are not agreed as to whether Gehenna, any more than paradise and the 
heavenly temple, came into existence before or after the first day of creation. 
See the passages in Wetstein. From our passage nothing can be deter- 
mined one way or another, especially as it is not the aorist participle that is 
made use of. Observe, however, that, in this instance, Jesus does not 
follow up jrovuacu. with tiv, as in ver. 34, but with 76 diaBdrw, x.7.A. 5 be- 
cause the fall of the angels (Jude 6 ; 2 Pet. ii. 4), which Scripture every- 
where presupposes in its doctrine of the devil and his kingdom,’ took place 
previous to the introduction of sin among men (John viii. 44 ; 2 Cor. xi. 3), 
so that it was for the former in the first instance that the everlasting fire 
was prepared ; comp. viii. 29. But as men became partakers in the guilt 
of demons, so now are they also condemned to share in their punishment.’ 

Ver. 44. Self-justification, by repelling the accusation as unwarranted. — 
kat avroi| they too ; for their answer is in exact correspondence with that of 
the righteous. —ére. . . Kai ov dinkovac. cor] when saw we Thee hungry, etc., 
without ministering to Thee? What was the occasion on which, according 
to Thy accusation, we saw Thee hungry, and did not give Thee food ? 
Such an occasion never occurred ; as we have never seen Thee in such cir- 
cumstances, so can we never have refused Thee our good services. In this 
self-justification it is assumed that if they had seen Him, they would have 
shown their love toward Him. 


1 Hahn, Theol. d. N. T. I. p. 818 ff. 
2 For ayyedot tov SiaB., comp, 2 Cor. xii. 7; Rey. xii. 7. 


CHAP. Xxv., 46. 447 


Ver. 46. Comp. Dan. xii. 2. The absolute idea of eternity, in regard to 
the punishment of hell (comp. ver. 41), is not to be got rid of either by a 
popular toning down of the force of aiévoc (Paulus), or by appealing (de 
Wette, Schleiermacher, Oetinger) to the figurative character of the term jire 
and the supposed incompatibility between the idea of eternity and such a 
thing as evil and its punishment, any more than by the theory that the 
whole representation is intended simply by way of warning (according to 
which view it is not meant thereby to throw light upon the eternal nature 
of things, but only to portray the xpiovc, z.e., the cessation of the conflict 
between good and evil by the extinction of the latter); but is to be 
regarded as exegetically established in the present passage (comp. iii. 12, 
xvii. 8) by the opposed Cav aiéviov, which denotes the everlasting Mes- 
sianic life.’—- oi d& dixacov] ‘‘ hoc ipso judicio declarati,” ‘‘ declared to be so 
by this very judgment,” Bengel. Comp. Rom. v. 19. 


Remarx.—Because the judgment is a judgment of Christians (see on ver. 31), 
faith is presupposed though not formally mentioned. The truth is, the Judge 
regulates His decision according to the way in which faith has been evidenced 
by love (1 Cor. xiii. 1 ff. ; John xiii. 35), without which as its necessary fruit 
faith does not save (Gal. v. 6). Comp. Apol. Conf. A., p. 138. The manifesta- 
tions of love, as forming the principle of the Christian’s life, accordingly con- 
stitute the tpdaéi¢ by which he is to be judged (xvi. 27 ; 2 Cor. v. 10). Comp. 
v. 7. But, in so far as, according to this concrete view of the judgment, Jesus 
bases His sentence upon the principle that love shown to or withheld from the 
least of His brethren is the same as love shown to or withheld from Himself, 
He does so in harmony with the view contained in xviii. 5, x. 40. Comp. John 
Xlii. 20. 

1 Kaeuffer, as above, p. 21; comp. also Schmid in the Jahrb. f. D. Theol. 1870, p. 
Weizel in the Stud. wu. Krit. 1836, p. 605 ff. ; 136 ff. 


448 THE GOSPEL OF MATTHEW. 


CHAPTER XXXVI: 


Ver. 3. After apyepei¢ Elz. Scholz. have «ai oi ypayparteic, which, in accord- 
ance with A B D L 8, min. vss. Or. Aug., has been deleted as an interpolation 
from Mark xiv. 1, Luke xxii. 2.— Ver. 4. The order déAw kpat7jouc: (reversed in 
Elz.) is supported by decisive evidence. — Ver. 7. Baputizov] Lachm. and Tisch- 
8: moAvtiuov, which, though in accordance with A D L M IL 8, min., is, never- 
theless, taken from John xii. 3. Comp. Mark xiv. 3. From this latter passage 
is derived the order éyovoa aAdB. pdpov (Lachm. and Tisch. 8, following B D L 
8, min.). —7)v kepaanv] Lachm. and Tisch. 8: ti¢ kegadje, following BD M X, 
min. Chrys. But the genitive would be suggested to the transcribers by a com- 
parison with ver. 12, quite as readily as by Mark xiv. 3.— Ver. 8. aizov] is, 
with Lachm. and Tisch., to be deleted, both here and in ver. 45, as being a 
common interpolation ; similarly with Tisch. after BiAacd., ver. 65. — Ver. 9. 
zovro] Elz. inserts 70 pdpov, against decisive evidence ; borrowed from Mark 
xiv. 5; John xii. 5.— The article before ztwyoic, which may as readily have 
been omitted, in accordance with John xii. 5, as inserted, in accordance with 
Mark xiv. 3, is, with Elz. and Tisch. 8, to be left out. There isa good deal 
of evidence on both sides; but the insertion might easily take place out of 
regard to ver. 11. — Ver. 11. mavroze ydp Tove mrwxovc] E F H MT, min. Chrys.: 
Tove TTwYodG yap Tavrore. Recommended by Griesb., adopted by Fritzsche. 
As this reading may have been taken from John xii. 8 as readily as that of the 
Received text from Mark xiv. 7, the matter must be determined simply by the 
balance of evidence, and this isin favor of the Received text. — Ver. 17. érowua- 
cwuev] The evidence of D K U, min. Or. in favor of the reading éromudoouev 
(Fritzsche) is inadequate. — Ver. 20. Lachm. and Tisch. read paOy7év after 
dwdexa, on the authority of A L M A II 8, min. vss. Chrys. Correctly ; the 
omission is due to Mark xiv. 17. — For ékaoroe airov, ver. 22, it is better, with 
Lachm. and Tisch., to adopt ei¢ &cacroc, in accordance with weighty evidence. 
Had cic been derived from Mark xiv. 19, we should have had ¢ic ka9’ cic 3 abtov, 
again, was an interpolation of extremely common occurrence. — Ver. 26. eb/oy7- 
oac| Scholz: eiyapiotyoac, following A E F H K MS U VTA Il, min. vss. 
Fathers. Considering, however, the weight of evidence that still remains in 
favor of evAoy. (B C DL Z 8), and having regard to the preponderating influ- 
ence of Luke and Paul (1 Cor. xi, 23 ff.) rather than Mark, upon the ecclesias- 
tical phraseology of the Lord’s Supper, it is better to retain ed2o0y. — For this 
reason we should also retain rév before dprov, though deleted by Lachm. and 
- Tisch. 8, and not found in BC DG UL Z &, min. Chrys. Theophyl. — For 
édidov Lachm. reads dove, omitting at the same time «ai before eize, in accord- 
ance with B D L Z &** min. Cant. Copt. Due toa desire to make the con- 
struction uniform with the preceding. Had dovc been changed to a tense in 
accordance with Mark and Luke, we should have had édoxe. — Ver. 27. Td xor7- 
ptov] The article, which is deleted by Tisch., and is wanting in BEF GLZARX, 
min., is due to the ecclesiastical phraseology to which Luke and Paul have 


CHIMPS xoxavile 449 


given currency. — Ver. 28. 10 77¢] Lachm. and Tisch, have simply ric, in accord- 
ance with B-D L Z &, 33. 70 is an exegetical addition. —- Kaye before diaf. is 
wanting in BL Z §&, 23, 102, Sahid. Cyr., and is a liturgical addition. Had it 
been originally written, this is just the place of all others where it would not 
have been omitted. — Ver. 31. dvacxopriobjoera] A BC GH* ILM 8, min. Or. 
(once) : drackopriofjcovrac. So Lachm. and Tisch. The reading of the Received 
text is a grammatical correction. — Ver. 33. Instead of ¢ «ai of the Received 
text, there is decisive evidence for the simple «i. «ai would be written in the 
margin from Mark xiv. 29, but would not be inserted in the text as in the case 
of Mark. —éyé] The evidence in favor of inserting dé (which is adopted by 
Griesb., Matth., Fritzsche) is inadequate, An addition for the purpose of 
giving prominence to the contrast. — Ver. 35. After duoiwce important witnesses 
read dé, which has been adopted by Griesb., Matth., Scholz, Fritzsche. Taken 
from Mark xiv. 31.— Ver. 36. éw¢ od] Lachm.: éw¢ od dv; D K LA, min. : fue 
av. The reading of Lachm., though resting only on the authority of A, is never- 
theless to be regarded as the original one. od dy would be omitted in iconfor- 
mity with Mark xiv. 32 (C M* 8, min. have simply éwc), and then there would 
come a restoration in some instances of od only, and, in others, merely of d- 
—Ver. 38. We should not follow Griesb., Matth., Fritzsche, Scholz, Tisch. 7, in 
adopting 6 "Inoovc after avroic ; a reading which, though attested by important 
witnesses, is nevertheless contradicted by a preponderance of evidence (A B C* 
DJL X, and the majority of vss.), while, moreover, it would be inserted more 
readily and more frequently (in this instance probably in conformity with 
Mark xiv. 34) than it would be omitted. — Ver. 39. zpocA0ov] so B M I, It. 
Vulg. Hilar. Elz. Lachm. and Tisch. 7. The preponderance of evidence is in 
favor of xpoceANév, which, indeed, has been adopted by Matth., Scholz, and 
Tisch. 8 ; but it is evidently a mechanical error on the part of the transcriber ; 
mpoépyecba occurs nowhere else in Matth.—'The ov after mdrep (deleted by 
Tisch. 8) is suspected of being an addition from ver. 42 ; however, the evidence 
in favor of deleting it (A BC D &, etc.) is too weighty to admit of its being 
retained. — Ver. 42. 70 ror#piov] is wanting in A BC IL 8&, min. vss. and 
Fathers ; in Dit comes before rovro (as in ver. 39); in 157, Arm., it comes be- 
fore éav, in which position it also occurs in A, though with a mark of erasure. 
Suspected by Griesb., deleted by Fritzsche, Lachm., and Tisch. A supplement 
from ver. 39. Further, the az’ éuov following, though the evidence against it is 
not quite so strong (B D L 8, however), and though it is defended by Fritzsche, 
and only bracketed by Lachm., is to be condemned (with Griesb., Rinck, 
Tisch.) as an interpolation from ver. 39. — Ver. 43. eipicxe: abrove rad] Lachm. 
and Tisch., with the approval of Griesb. also: ra/uvv ebpev airovc, following B C 
DIL 8, min. and the majority of vss. ; while other important witnesses (such 
as A K A) also read eipev, but adhere to the order in the Received text. Accord- 
ingly, eipev is decidedly to be adopted, while eipicce: is to be regarded as 
derived from ver. 40; as for rai, however, there is so much diversity among 
the authorities with reference to its connection, and consequently with refer- 
ence to its position, that only the preponderance of evidence must decide, and 
that is favorable to Lachm, and Tisch. —In ver. 44, again, tuAvv is variously 
placed; but, with Lachm. and Tisch., it should be put before aredAov, in 
accordance with B CD IL 8, min. vss. é« tp/tov, which Lachm. brackets, is, 
with Tisch., to be maintained on the strength of preponderating evidence. 
Had it been inserted in conformity with ver. 42, it would have been placed after 


450 THE GOSPEL OF MATTHEW. 


médw ; had it been from Mark xiv. 41, again, we should have had 76 rpirov. 
The omission may have been readily occasioned by a fear lest it should be sup- 
posed that Jesus prayed rov aitdv Adyov but once before. — After eizév Tisch. 8 
repeats the majw (BL &, min. Copt.), which may easily have been omitted as 
superfluous. However, the preponderance of evidence (especially that of the 
vss. also) is against adopting it, so that there is reason to regard it rather as a 
mechanical repetition. — Ver, 50. The reading é9’ 6 (instead of é¢’ 6, as in Elz.) 
is attested by decisive evidence. — Ver. 52. aroAow7m] FHK MS U VT 4, 
min. vss. and Fathers : arofavovvrar. Approved by Griesb. in opposition to the 
principal mss. ; a gloss, for which Sahid. must have read zeoovvra:. — Ver. 53. 
The placing of dpr: after tapacr. pot, by Tisch, 8, is in opposition to a prepon- 
derance of evidence, and is of the nature of an emendation ; de is likewise 
inserted by some. — rieiove].Lachm. and Tisch. : wAeia, after B D S*. Cor- 
rectly ; the reading of the Received text is an unskilled emendation. For the 
same reason the following 7, which Lachm. brackets, should, with Tisch., be 
deleted, in accordance with B D L 8; though we should not follow Tisch. 8 in 
reading Aeyidvov (A C K L A I1* §*) for Aeyedvac, because the genitive is con- 
nected with the reading rAeiovc. — Ver. 55. mpd¢ tudc] is, with Tisch., following 
B LS, 33, 102, Copt. Sahid. Cyr. Chrys., to be deleted as an interpolation 
from Mark xiy. 49. — Ver. 58. az6 paxpd0ev] a6 should be deleted, with Tisch., 
in accordance with important evidence. Taken from Mark xiv. 54. — Ver. 59. 
Kai ol TpecBiTEpor] is wanting, no doubt, in B D L &, min. vss. and Fathers, but 
it was omitted in conformity with Mark xiv. 55. Suspected by Griesb., deleted 
by Lachm. and Tisch. 8. A desire to conform with Mark also serves to explain 
the fact that, in a few of the witnesses, 6Aov is placed before 70 cvvédp. — Oavato- 
cwov| Pavatdéoovow, as read by Lachm. and Tisch., is supported by decisive evi- 
dence, and had been altered to the more usual subjunctive. airdv should like- 
wise be put before avat. (BC DLN &, min. Vulg. It.). — Ver. 60. The reading 
of the Received text, which is attested by the important evidence of A C** E 
F G, ete., and likewise maintained by Fritzsche and Scholz, is: kai ody evpov. 
Kail roAAav Wevdouapripwv mpocsA0dvtwv ovy etpov. Griesb. : xai ody ebpov roAddv 
wevd. mpooeA§. Lachm. and Tisch.: kai oby ebpov moda. mpoceA). wevd., after 
which Lachm. gives the second ovy evpov in brackets. This second ovy etpov is 
wanting in A C* L N* &, min. vss. and Fathers (Or. twice) ; while in A BL 0. 
SN, min. Syr. Or. Cyr. the order of the words is: roAA. rpoceAf. pevd. Further, 
Syr. Arr. Pers. Syr.iet Slav., though omitting the second ody eipov, have retained 
kai before woAAdv ; and this reading (accordingly : kai oby ebpov Kai TOAAGY Tpo- 
ceANdvTwv wevdouaptipwv) I agree with Rinck, Lucubr. crit. p. 282 f., regarding as 
the original one. This xai, the force of which was missed from its not being 
followed by a verb, occasioned considerable embarrassment to the transcribers, 
who disposed of the difficulty by adding a second ovy eipov, while others got 
rid of the troublesome xai by simply omitting it.—dvo pevdouapr.| Tisch., fol- 
lowing B L 8, min. vss. (also Syr.) and Or. (once), reads merely dio. Correctly ; 
wevdoudpt. is an addition, which might seem all the more necessary since a 
saying of Christ’s actually underlay the words. — Ver. 65. 67:] is wanting before 
éBAaconu. in such important witnesses, that Lachm, and Tisch. are justified in 
deleting it as a common interpolation. — Ver. 70. For airov zavrwv read, with 
Tisch. 8, following preponderating evidence, merely zdvrwv, to which airav 
was added for sake of greater precision. — Ver. 71. For toic¢ éxe?, which Tisch. 
8 has restored, Scholz and Tisch. 7 read airoic¢ éxei. Both readings are strongly 


CHAP. XXVI., 1-5. 451 
attested ; but the latter is to be preferred, because the current rote ékez would 
involuntarily suggest itself and supersede the less definite expression airoic éxel. 
— Ver. 74. katabeuarivew] Elz., Fritzsche : xaravadeuarivew, against decisive evi- 
dence. A correction. 


Ver. 1 f.* For this form of transition, by which a marked pause is indicat- 
ed at the close of a somewhat lengthened discourse, comp. vii. 28, xi. 1, 
Xili. 53, xix. 1.—-dvrac] referring back, without any particular object in 
view (such as to call attention to the fact that our Lord’s functions as a 
teacher were now ended, Wichelhaus and the earlier expositors),. to the pre- 
ceding discourse, consisting, as it does, of several sections (xxiv. 4-xxy. 
46), not a parallel to LXX. Deut. xxxi. 1 (Delitzsch). — nerd dbé0 juépac] 
after the lapse of two days, i.e., the day after next the Passover commenced. 
It would therefore be Tuesday, if, as the Synoptists inform us (differently 
in John, see on John xviii. 28), the feast began on Thursday evening. — 
7) wacya] NOD, Aram. 8MDD, the passing over (Ex. xii. 13), a Mosaic feast, 
in commemoration of the sparing of the first-born in Egypt, began after 
sunset on the 14th of Nisan, and lasted till the 21st. On its original mean- 
ing as a feast in connection with the consecration of the first-fruits of the 
spring harvest, see Ewald, alterth. p. 466 f.;?—kai 6 vidc, x.7.2.] a definite 
prediction of what was to happen to Him at the Passover, but represented 
as something already known to the disciples (from xx. 19), and which, 
though forming part of the contents of oidare, isat the same time introduced 
by a broken construction (not as dependent on 6rz), in accordance with the 
depth of His emotion. 

Vy. 3-5. Tére] 7.e., at the time that Jesus was saying this to His disciples. 
Fatal coincidence. —ei¢ tiv avAjv tov apy.| It is usual to understand the 
palace of the high priest, in direct opposition to the use of ai#7* in the New 
Testament (not excluding Luke xi. 21). We should rather interpret it of 
the court enclosed by the various buildings belonging to the house,* such 
courts having been regularly used as meeting-places.° This meeting is not 
to be regarded as one of the public sittings of the Sanhedrim (on the proba- 
ble official meeting-place of this body at that time, the so-called taverns,® 
but as a private conference of its members. — tov Aeyou. Kaidda| who bore the 
name of Caiaphas. Comp. ii. 23. This was a surname ; the original name 
was Joseph ;7 but the surname having become his ordinary and official des- 


(see Duncan, Zex., ed. Rost, p. 181), Pindar, 
and the Tragedians, ete. Never, however, 
is it so used in the New Testament. Even 
in John xviii. 15, avAn Tod apxetep. is undoubt- 


1See on ch. xxvi. f. (Mark xiy., Luke 
xxii.); Wichelhaus, ausfiihri. Kommentar 
tiber die Gesch. des Leidens J. Chr. Halle 
1855 ; Steinmeyer, d. Leidensgesch. d. Herrn 


in Bezug auf da. neueste Krit., Berl. 1868. 

2?Dillmann in Schenkel’s Lex. IV. p. 
387 f. 

3 Of course avA7 is used as equivalent to 
Bacidevov (see, for example, the passages 
from Polyb. in Schweighauser’s Zex. p. 101), 
not only by later Greek writers (Athen. 
Deipn. iv. p. 189 D; Herodian, i. 13. 16, fre- 
quently in the Apocr.), but also by Homer 


edly the court of the house. 

4See Winer, Realw. under the word 
Hiéuser ; Friedlieb, Archdol. d. Leidensgesch. 
Dei de 

5 Comp. Vulg. (atrium), Erasmus, Casta- 
lio, Calvin, Maldonatus. 

6 See Wieseler, Beitr. p. 209 ff. 

7 Joseph. Antt. xviii. 2. 2. 


452 THE GOSPEL OF MATTHEW. 
ignation, it was used for the name itself ; hence Aeyouévov, not éxckarovuévov 
or éxiAeyouévov. Caiaphas (either = 89!2, depressio, or 83°32, rock) obtained 
his appointment through the procurator Valerius Gratus, and, after enjoy- 
ing his dignity for seventeen years, was deposed by Vitellius,’ 4. 3.— 
cvveBovdebcavro, iva] they consulted together, in order that they, John xi. 53. — 
yy év rh éoprH] namely : let us arrest him, and put him to death! For the’ ab- 
solute yf, comp. on Gal. v. 13. The reference is to the entire period over 
which the feast extended, not to the place where it was celebrated.* It is 
true no scruple was felt, especially in urgent and important cases (comp. on 
Acts xii. 3 f.), about having executions* during the feast days (although 
most probably never on the first of them, on which, according to Mischna 
Jom tob v. 2, the trial took place,* and that with a view to making the exam- 
ple more deterrent (Deut. xvii. 13). But the members of the Sanhedrim 
dreaded an uprising among the numerous sympathizers with Jesus both 
within and outside the capital (a very natural apprehension, considering that 
this was just the season when so many strangers, and especially Galilaeans, 
were assembled in the city,® though, by and by, they overcame this fear, 
and gladly availed themselves of the opportunity which Judas afforded them 
(ver. 14).° To regard py év ri éoprH aS Meaning: previous to the feast! as 
though, during the feast itself, the execution were to be considered as already 
a thing of the past (Neander, p. 678 ; Hausrath), would be quite in keeping 
with John’s statement as to the day on which the crucifixion took place 
(comp. on Mark xiv. 2); but it would not suit the connection as found in 
Matthew and Mark, because, according to them, the consultation among the 
members of the Sanhedrim had taken place so very shortly before the Pass- 
over (ver. 2) that the greater part of the multitude, whose rising was appre- 
hended, must have been present by that time. 

Ver. 6 ff. This anointing, which is also recorded in Mark xiv. 3 ff. (followed 
by Matthew), is not the same as that of Luke vii. 36 ff., but is so essentially 
different from it, not only as to the time, place, circumstances, and person, 
but as to the whole historical and ethical connection and import, that even 
the peculiar character of the incident is not sufficient to warrant the assump- 
tion that each case is but another version of one and the same story.” This, 
however, is not a different incident * from that recorded in John xii. 1 ff.° 


1 Joseph. Antt. xviii. 2. 2. 

2 Wieseler, Chronol. Synops. p. 367. 

3 Sanhedr. f. 89. 1. 

4 Comp. on John xviii. 28, and see, above 
all, Bleek’s Beitr. p. 136 ff. 

5 Comp. Joseph. Antt. xvii. 9. 3; Bell. i. 4. 3. 

8“ Sic consilium divinum_ successit,”’ 
*“so the divine counsel was fulfilled,” 
Bengel. 

7 Jn opposition to Chrysostom, Grotius, 
Schleiermacher, Schr. d. Luk. p. 110 ff.; 
Strauss, Weisse, Hug, Ewald, Bleek, Baur, 
Hilgenfeld, Schenkel, Keim. 

8 In opposition to Origen, Chrysostom, 
Jerome, Theophylact, Euthymius Zigabe- 
nus, Osiander, Lightfoot, Wolf. 


*On the controversy in which Faber 
Stapul. has been involved in consequence 
of his theory that Jesushad been anointed 
by three different Marys, see Graf in Nied- 
ner’s Zeitschr. f. histor. Theol. 1852, 1. p. 54 ff. 
This distinguishing of three Marys (which 
was also adopted by so early an expositor 
as Euthymius Zigabenus, and by tives, to 
whom Theophylact refers) is, in fact, rather 
too much at variance with the tradition 
that the sister of Lazarus is identical with 
the woman who was a sinner, Luke vii., 
and was no other than Mary Magdalene. 
Yet in none of the three accounts of 
anointing is this latter to be understood as 
the Mary referred to. 


CHAP. SEVIS; 7. 453 


The deviations in John’s account of the affair—to the effect that the anoint- 
ing took place not two, but six days before the feast ; that Martha was the 
entertainer, no mention being made of Simon ; that it was not the head, but 
the feet of Jesus that were anointed ; and that the carping about extrava- 
gance is specially ascribed to Judas—are not to be disposed of by arbitra- 
rily assuming that the accounts of the different evangelists were intended to 
supplement each other (Ebrard, Wichelhaus, Lange), but are to be taken as 
justifying the inference that in John alone (not in Matthew and Mark) 
we have the narrative of an eye-witness. The incident, as given in Matthew 
and Mark, appears to be an episode taken from a tradition which had lost 
its freshness and purity, and inserted without exact historical connection, 
although, on the whole, in its right order, if with less regard to precision as 
to the time of its occurrence. Hence the loose place it occupies in the prag- 
matism of the passage, from which one might imagine it removed altogether, 
without the connection being injured in the slightest degree. The tradi- 
tion on which the narrative of Matthew and Mark is based had evidently 
suffered in its purity from getting mixed up with certain disturbing elements 
from the first version of the story of the anointing in Luke vii., among which 
elements we may include the statement that the name of the entertainer was 
Simon. 

Ver. 6. Tevou. év ByOav.] t.c., having come to Bethany, 2 Tim. i. 17; John 
vi. 25, and frequently in classical writers ; comp. on Phil. ii. 7. To remove 
this visit dack to a point of time previous to that indicated at ver. 2, with the 
effect of simply destroying the sequence (Ebrard, Lange), is to do such har- 
monistic violence to the order observed in Matthew and Mark as the rére of 
ver. 14 should have been sufficient to avert. —Ziuwvo¢e tov Aetpov| In a way 
no less unwarrantable has the person here referred to (a person who had 
formerly been a leper, and who, after his healing, effected probably by Jesus, 
had continued to be known dy this epithet) been associated with the family 
of Bethany ; he has been supposed to have been the deceased father of this 
family,’ or some other relative or friend,? or the owner of the house. Of 
the person who, according to Matthew and Mark, provided this entertain- 
ment, nothing further is known ; whereas, according to John, the entertain- 
ment was given by the family of which Lazarus was a member ; the latter 
is the correct view, the former is based upon the similar incident recorded 
in Luke vii. 

Ver. 7. Tw] According to John, it was Mary. — a2aBacrpov] Among 
classical writers the neuter of this word does not occur except in the plural ; 
in the singular a/idRacrpo¢ is masculine, as also in 2 Kings xxi. 13, and femi- 
nine.* — éxi r. x. avrov] A divergence from John’s account, not to be recon- 
ciled in the arbitrary manner in which Calvin and Ebrard have attempted, 
as though the oil had been so unsparingly poured on that it ran down and was 
used for the feet as well (comp. Morison). Matthew narrates an anointing 





1 Theophylact, Ewald Gesch. Chr. p. 481. in alabaster boxes,” Plin. V. ZZ. iii. 3; 

2 Grotius, Kuinoel, Ebrard, Lange, Bleek. Herod. iii. 20; Theoer. 7d. xv. 114; Anth. 

3 “ Unguenta optime servantur in alabas- Pal. ix. 153. 3; Jacobs, ad Anthol. XI. p. 92. 
tris,” “‘ Unguents are especially preserved 


454 THE GOSPEL OF MATTHEW. 


of the head ; John, of the feet. The practice of anointing the heads of guests 
by way of showing them respect is well known.’ Seeing, however, that the 
anointing of the feet was unusual (in opposition to Ebrard), and betokened a 
special and extraordinary amount of respect (as is, in fact, apparent from 
Luke vii. 46), our passage would have been all the less likely to ‘‘ omit” it 
(Lange), had it really formed part of the tradition. — dvaxecyévov] while He 
was reclining at table, a circumstance qualifying the airov. 

Ver. 8. The feature peculiar to John, and having an essential bearing up- 
on the character of his narrative, to the effect that it was Judas who censured 
the proceeding, had come to be obliterated in the tradition represented by 
our present passage. Our narrative, then, is certainly not contradictory of 
that of John, but only less precise. Arbitrary attempts have been made to 
explain our passage by saying either that, in Matthew, the narrative is to be 
regarded as sydleptical,’ or that Judas simply gave utterance to an observation 
in which the others have innocently concurred,® or that several of them be- 
trayed symptoms of murmuring (Lange). —7 aré/eva airy] this loss, in making 
such a use of an expensive oil. This word never occurs in the New Testa- 
ment in a transitive sense (as in Polyb. vi. 59. 5). 

Ver. 9. IloAAov] put more precisely in Mark xiv. 5; John xii. 5. On the 
expensiveness of spikenard, a pound of which is alleged to have cost even 
upwards of 400 denarii, see Plin. V.H. xii. 26, xiii. 4. — cai dofjvac] the sub- 
ject (the equivalent in money, had it been sold) may be inferred from the 
context (rpabyvar roAAov).* 

Ver. 10. Tvoic] Comp. xvi. 8. We may imagine what precedes to have 
been spoken among the disciples in a low murmuring tone. —xérove rapéxerr, 
to give trouble, to cause annoyance.°— épyov yap, «.7.A.] Justification of the 
disapproval implied in the foregoing question. «adv, when used with épyov, 
is, according to ordinary usage, to be taken in an ethical sense ; thus (comp. 
v. 16) : an eacellent deed, one that is morally beautiful, and not a piece of 
waste, as ye are niggardly enough to suppose. The disciples had allowed 
their estimate of the action to be determined by the principle of mere utility, 
and not by that of moral propriety, especially of love to Christ. 

Ver. 11 f. Justification of the «aAév on the ground of the peculiar circum- 
stances under which the anointing took place. Jesus was on the very 
threshold of death ; they would always have opportunities of showing kind- 
ness to the poor, but by and by it would be no longer in their power to doa 
loving service to Him in person upon earth !|_ Accordingly there is a moral 
propriety in making the special manifestation of love, which was possible 
only now, take precedence of that general one which was always possible. 
—ov ravrore éyete| a sorrowful Uitotes involving the idea: but I will soon be 
removed by: death, to which idea the yap of ver. 12 refers. — Batoica] inas- 
much as she has poured... she has done it (this outpouring) with the view (as 
though I were already a corpse) ef embalming me (Gen. 1. 2). The aorist 


1 Comp. Plat. Rep. p. 398 A,andStallbaum Paulus, Wichelhaus. 

thereon. 4 See Kiihner, II. 1, p. 30 f. 
2 Jerome, Beza, Maldonatus. 5 See Kypke, Odss. I. p. 180. Comp. aévov 
3 Augustine, Calvin, Grotius, Kuinoel, mapexetv (Herod. i. 177), and such like. 


CHAP. XXVI., 13-16. 455 


participle represents the act as finished contemporaneously with énxoincav.3 
For the rest, it may be said that, under the influence of grateful emotion, 
Jesus ascribes a special motive to the woman, though she herself simply 
meant to testify her love and reverence. Such feelings, intensified as they 
were by the thought of the approaching death of the beloved Master, and 
struggling to express themselves in this particular form, could not but 
receive the highest consecration. 

Ver. 13. Td evayy. rovto] comp. on xxiv. 14. In this instance, however, 
the emphasis is not on rovro (as in xxiv. 14), but on 76 ebayyédvov : this 
message of redemption, where roiro points to the subject of the message just 
hinted at, vv. 11, 12, viz. the death of Jesus ; and although the allusion may 
be but slight, still it is an allusion in living connection with the thoughts 
of death that filled His soul, and one that naturally springs from the 
sorrowful emotion of His heart. The thing to which roiro refers is, when 
put in explicit terms, identical with 76 ebayy. rie yapitoc r. Oeov (Acts xx. 24), 
7d evayy. TH¢ owTypiac tu. (Eph. i. 18), 7d evayy. tHe eipfvy¢ (Eph. vi. 15), 6 
2é6yo¢ Tov otavpov (1 Cor. i. 18). —év 6Aw 7h Kédcuw] is not to be connected 
with 2aA76. (Fritzsche, Kuinoel), but with xypuy67. Comp. Mark xiv. 9 ; 
érov denotes the locality in its special, év 64m 76 Kécpw in its most comprehen- 
sive sense. —ei¢ pryyoc. aiz.| belongs to Aadnf. She has actually been 
remembered, and her memory is blessed. 

Vv. 14-16. On "Iotdac "Ioxap., see on x. 4. —rére] after this repast, but 
not because he had been so much offended, nay, embittered,’ by the reply of 
Jesus, ver. 10 ff. (comp. John xii. 7 f.), —a view scarcely in keeping with 
the mournful tenderness of that reply in which, moreover, according to 
Matthew, the name of Judas was not once mentioned. According to John 
xiii. 27, the devil, after selecting Judas as his instrument (xiil. 2), impelled 
him to betray his Master, not, however, till the occasion of the last supper,—a 
divergence from the synoptical narrative which ought, with Strauss, to be 
recognized, especially as it becomes very markedjwhen Luke xxii. 3 is com- 
pared with John xiii. 27.— ic rév dddexa] tragic contrast ; found in all 
the evangelists, even in John xii. 4; Acts i. 17.—In ver. 15 the mark of 
interrogation should not be inserted after dovva: (Lachmann), but allowed to 
remain after xapad. aitév. Expressed syntactically, the question would run: 
What will ye give me, if I deliver Him to you? In the eagerness of his 
haste the traitor falls into a broken construction :? What will ye give me, 
and 1 will, ete. Here kai is the explicative atgue, meaning : and so ; on éyd, 
again, there is an emphasis expressive of boldness. — torncav| they weighed for 
him, according to the ancient custom, and comp. Zech. xi. 12. No doubt 
coined shekels* were in circulation since the time of Simon the Maccabee 
(143 B.c.), but weighing appears to have been still practised, especially when 
considerable sums were paid out of the temple treasury ; it is, in any Case, 


1 Comp. xxvii. 4; Eph. i. 9, a. ; Hermann, 3 Kiihner, IT. 2, p. 782 f. 
ad Viger. p. 774; Miiller in thé Luther. 4 Otto, Spicil. p. 60 ff.; Ewald in the 
Zeitschr. 1872, p. 631 ff. Nachr. v. ad. Gesellsch. ad. Wiss. GStt. 1855, 


* Wichelhaus, Schenkel, following the p. 109 ff. 
older expositors. 


456 THE GOSPEL OF MATTHEW. 


unwarrantable to understand the éorycav merely in the sense of : they paid. 
For iornui, to weigh, see Wetstein on our passage.’ The interpretation of 
certain expositors : they arranged with him, they promised him,* is in opposi- 
tion not only to xxvii. 8, where the words ra apyipia refer back to the 
shekels already paid, but also to the terms of the prophecy, Zech. xi. 12 
(comp. Matt. xxvii. 9). —rpidk. apy.] apybpia, shekels, only in Matthew, not 
in the LXX., which, in Zech. xi. 12, has rpidkovta apyvpovg (se. cikdove) 5 
comp. Jer. xxxii. 9. They were shekels of the sanctuary (wpa 2p), which, 
as containing the standard weight, were heavier than the ordinary shekels ; 
according to Joseph. Antt. iii. 8. 2, they were equivalent to four Attic 
drachmae, though, according to Jerome (on Mice. iii. 10), whose estimate, 
besides being more precise, is found to tally with existing specimens of this 
coin, they were equal to twenty oboli, or to 34 drachmae—.e., to something 
like 26 to 27 silbergroschen (2s. 6d.).*— étjree eixaipiav, wa] he sought a 
good opportunity (Cic. de off. i. 40) for the purpose of, etc. Such a eixaipia as 
he wanted would present itself whenever he saw that ovAAnobévrog ob éuedre 
OépvB0¢ yevécba, ‘‘a disturbance was not likely to take place on His being 
apprehended,” Euthymius Zigabenus ; comp. ver. 5. 


Remark 1.—As the statement regarding the thirty pieces of silver is peculiar 
to Matthew, and as one so avaricious as Judas was would hardly have been con- 
tented with so moderate a sum, it is probable that, from its not being known 
exactly how much the traitor had received, the Gospel traditions came ultimately 
to fix upon such a definite amountas was suggested by Zech. xi. 12. Then, as tend- 
ing further to impugn the historical accuracy of Matthew’s statement, it is of 
importance to notice that it has been adopted neither by the earlier Gospel of 
Mark, nor the later one of Luke, nor by John. Comp. Strauss, Ewald, Scholten. 

Remark 2.—As regards the idea, that what prompted Judas to act. as he did, 
was a desire to bring about a rising of the people at the time of the feast, and 
to constrain ‘‘the dilatory Messiah to establish His kingdom by means of pop- 
ular violence’’ (Paulus, Goldhorn in Tgschirn. Memor. i. 2; Winer, Theile, 
Hase, Schollmeyer, Jesus u. Judas, 1836 ; Weisse, I. p. 450),—the traitor him- 
self being now doubtful, according to Neander and Ewald, as to whether Jesus 
was the Messiah or not,—it may be affirmed that it has no foundation whatever 
in the Gospel record, although it may be excused as a well-meant effort to ren- 
der a mysterious character somewhat more comprehensible, and to make so 
strange a choice on the part of Jesus a little less puzzling. According to John 
especially, the subjective motive which, in conjunction with Satanic agency 
(Luke xxii. 3; John xiii. 2, 27), led to the betrayal was simply avarice, not 
wounded ambition as well, see on ver. 14; nor love of revenge and such like 
(Schenkel) ; nor shipwrecked faith on the occasion of the anointing of Christ 
(Klostermann) ; nor melancholy, combined with irritation against Jesus because 
the kingdom He sought to establish was not a kingdom of this world (Lange). 
Naturally passionate at any rate (Pressensé), and destitute of clearness of head 


1Schleusner, Zhes. III. p. 122; Valck- Lange. 

enaer, ad Hurip. Fragm. p. 288. 3 See Bertheau, Gesch. d. Isr. pp. 34, 39 ; 
2 Vulg. Theophylact, Castalio, Grotius, Keil, Arch. II. p. 146. 

Elsner, Fritzsche, Kéauffer, Wichelhaus, 


CHAP, XXVI.5 17. 457 


as well as force of character (in opposition to Weisse), he was now so carried away 
by his own dark and confused ideas, that though betraying Jesus he did not 
anticipate that he would be condemned to death (xxvii. 3), and only began to 
realize what he had done when the consequences of his act stared him in the 
face. Those, accordingly, go too far in combating the attempts that have been 
made to palliate the deed in question, who seek to trace it to fierce anger against 
Jesus, and the profoundest wickedness (Kbrard), and who represent Judas as hav- 
ing been from the first—even at the time he was chosen—the most consummate 
scoundrel to be found among men (Daub, Judas Ischar. 1816), That funda- 
mental vice of Judas, rAeovegia, became doubtless, in the abnormal development 
which his moral nature underwent through intercourse with Jesus, the power 
which completely darkened and overmastered his inner life, culminating at last 
in betrayal and suicide. Moreover, in considering the crime of Judas, Script- 
ure requires us to keep in view the divine teleology, Peter already speaking of 
Jesus (Acts ii. 23) as 77 Gpiopévy Bova Kai rpoyvecer Tod Geod éxdoTov, in a way 
corresponding very much to the view taken of the conduct of Herod and Pilate 
in Acts iv. 28. Judas is thus the tragic instrument and organ of the divine 
eiwapuévyn, though not in such a sense as to extenuate in the least the enormity 
and culpability of his offence, ver, 24. Comp. John xvii. 12; Acts i. 25; and 
see, further, on John vi. 70, Remark 1. 


Ver. 17. Ty d& rpdry tov afip.| on the first day of the unleavened bread, i.e., 
on the first day of the feast, the day on which the unleavened bread (M317) is 
eaten. The day referred to is the 14th of Nisan (Thursday, according to the 
synoptic evangelists), which, following the loose popular mode of reckon- 
ing, to which Josephus (Ant. ii. 15. 1) also conforms when he represents 
the feast as extending over eight days, was counted as one of the feast days, 
although the Passover did not begin till the evening of that day, Num. 
Xxvilil. 16 ; Ex. xii. 18.’— oi} in what house. —oo] ‘‘ Jesus est ut pater- 
familias inter discipulorum familiam,” ‘‘ Jesus is as the father of a family in 
His family of disciples,” Bengel. —7d récya] the Passover lamb, to be eaten 
on the evening of the 14th of Nisan. See on John xviii. 28. This lamb 
was slain (not by the priests) in the fore-court of the temple in the after- 
noon before sunset (D!3 iI fa, see Hupfeld, de primitiva festor. ap. Hebr. 
ratione, I. p. 12). —It may seem strange that, at a season when the pres- 
ence of such multitudes of strangers in the city was certain to create a scarc- 
ity of accommodation,’ Jesus should have put off His arrangements for cele- 
brating the feast till now. This, however, may be accounted for by the 
fact that He must have had certain friends in the town, such as the one re- 
ferred to in ver. 18, whose houses were so much at His disposal at all times 
that it was unnecessary to make any earlier preparation. 


Remark.-—According to John’s account, the last meal of which Jesus partook 
was not that of the Passover ; while His death is represented as having taken 
place on the day before the feast, the day which Matthew here calls the T POTN 
Tov afjuov, On this great and irreconcilable discrepancy, which even the most 


1 Otto, Spicil. p. 70. 2 Joseph. Bell. ii. 1. 3, vi. 9.3; Anté. xvii. 9. 3. 


458 THE GOSPEL OF MATTHEW. 


recent exhaustive inquiry, viz. that of Wieseler (Beitr. p. 230 ff.), has failed to 
dispose of, see on John xviii. 28. 


Ver. 18. Eic¢ rv xédw] to Jerusalem. According to ver. 6 ff., they were 
still at Bethany. — zpdc¢ roy deiva] as we say when we either cannot or will 
not mention the name of the person intended : fo so and so.1 But it was 
not Jesus Himself who omitted to mention the name (‘‘ ut discipulus ex 
diuturna consuetudine notissimum,” ‘‘as a disciple well known from long 
companionship,” Fritzsche), for, after the question of the disciples, ver. 
17, He could not assume that it was quite well understood who it was that 
He referred to ; but it has been omitted by the evangelist in his narrative 
(comp. even Augustine, de cons. ev. ii. 80), either because it had not been 
preserved as part of the tradition, or for some other reason, to us unknown. 
— 6 diaox.| the Teacher kar’ éfoy4v. Doubtless the unknown person here 
referred to was also a believer. Comp. xxi. 3. — 6 kaipéc pov] i.e., the time 
of my death (John xiii. 1), not: for my observing the Passover (Kuinoel), 
which would render the words singularly meaningless ; for this time was, 
in fact, the same for all. There is nothing whatever to justify the very old 
hypothesis, invented with a view to reconcile the synoptic writers with 
John, that Jesus partook of His last Passover meal a day earlier than that 
on which it was wont to be eaten by the Jews.? Further, this preliminary 
preparation implies a pious regard for Jesus on the part of the deiva, who 
was thus singled out; this Passover observance, for which preparations 
are being made, was destined, in fact, to be a farewell feast | According to 
Ewald, 6 xacpé¢ wov denotes the time when the Messianic phenomena would 
appear in the heavens (comp. xxiv. 34), which, however, is at variance with 
the text, where the death of Jesus is the all-pervading thought (see vv. 2, 4, 
11 f., 21).*— od] is not the Attie future, but the present, representing 
what is future as now going on, and suited to the idea of a distinct friendly 
arrangement beforehand : at thy house I observe the Passover.° Similarly 
classical writers frequently use zovetv in the sense of to observe a feast.— 
Matthew’s account presupposes nothing miraculous here, as Theophylact 
and Calvin would have us believe, but simply an arrangement, of which 
nothing further is known, which Jesus had come to with the person in 
question, and in consequence of which this latter not only understood what 
was meant by the 6 karpé¢ wov, but was also keeping a room in reserve for 
Jesus, in which to celebrate the Passover. It is probable that Jesus, 
during His stay in Jerusalem after the triumphal entry, had come to 
some understanding or other with him, so that all that now required to be 
done was to complete the preparations. It was reserved for the later tradi- 
tion, embodied in Mark and Luke, to ascribe a miraculous character to 
these preparations, in which respect they seem to have shared the fate of the 
incident mentioned at xxi. 2 f. This being the case, the claim of originality 


1See Wetstein and Hermann, ad Vig. 4 Fritzsche, Bleek. 
p. 704. 5 Comp. Ex. xii. 48; Josh. v. 10; Deut. 
2 See on John xviii. 28. Xv, 133 Esdr: 1.16; 


3 Comp. éAjAvdev 7 Spa, John xyii. 1. 


CHAP. XXVI., 20-23. 459 
must be decided in favor of what is still the very simple narrative of 
Matthew,’ in preference to that of Mark and Luke.* As represented, there- 
fore, by Matthew (who, according to Ebrard and Holtzmann, seems to have 
regarded the circumstance about the man bearing a pitcher of water as only 
‘“an unnecessary detail,” and whose narrative here is, according to Ewald, 
‘‘somewhat winnowed”), this incident is a natural one, though the same 
cannot be said of the account given by Mark and Luke (in opposition to 
Olshausen and Neander).— Who that unknown person above referred to 
might be, is a point which cannot be deternrined. 

Ver. 20. ’Avéxecto] for the enactment (Ex. xii. 11) requiring the Passover 
lamb to be eaten standing, staff in hand, and in travelling attire, had been 
subsequently superseded by the necessity of reclining.*—It was considered 
desirable that no Passover party should ever consist of fewer than ten 
guests,‘ for the lamb had to be entirely consumed (Ex. xii. 4, 43 ff.). 

Ver. 21. Eotidvtwv aitov| whilst they were eating, but previous to the insti- 
tution of the supper, ver. 26, which is at variance with Luke xxii. 21. _ The 
correct version of the matter is unquestionably that of Matthew, with 
whom John also agrees in so far as he represents the announcement of the 
betrayer as having taken place immediately after the feet-washing and the 
accompanying discourse, xiii. 21 ff. 

Ver. 22. "HpEavro] portrays the unfolding of one scene after another in the 
incident. Jesus did not answer till this question had been addressed to 
Him by all of them in turn. — pare éy eiuc] surely it is not I? presupposes a 
reply in the negative.© The account in John xiii. 22 ff. does not exclude, 
but supplements that before us, particularly because it also mentions that 
Judas had retired before the supper was instituted. 

Ver. 23. 0 éuBdwac, x.7.A.| he who has dipped (not : is dipping, Luther, fol- 
lowing the Vulgate). We have here no ‘such definite allusion as John xiii. 
26 represents Jesus to have made to Judas. For it is not probable that the 
dipping in question took place subsequent to the intimation by Jesus in 
ver. 21 and the commotion of ver. 22,—two circumstances calculated to in- 
terrupt for a little the progress of the meal,—-but rather before them, when 
there may have been others besides Judas dipping into the dish from which 
Jesus was eating. The allusion can be said to point specially to Judas only 
in so far as, happening to recline near to Jesus, he must have been eating 
out of the same dish with Him (for there would be several of such dishes 
standing on the table). Comp. Grotius. The éufarréuevoc of Mark xiv, 20 


1 Strauss, Bleek, Keim. 

2 Schulz, Schleiermacher, Weisse, Ewald, 
Weiss. 

3 See Hieros Pesachim f. 87. 2: ‘‘Mos ser- 
yorum est, ut edant stantes, at nune come- 
dant recumbentes, ut dignoscatur, exisse 
eos e servitute in libertatem,” ‘It is the 
custom of slaves to eat standing, but now 
they consume reclining, in order that it may 
be discerned that they have gone out of 
slavery into freedom.’’? See Usteri, Com- 


ment. Joh. ev. genuin. esse. 1823, p. 26 ff. 

4 Joseph. Bell. vi. 9. 3. 

5**Cum scelus exhorreant, cupiunt ab 
ejus suspicione purgari ; bona tamen con- 
scientia freti, libere testari volunt, quam 
procul remoti sint a tanto scelere,” ‘ While 
they shudder at the crime, they are eager to 
purge themselves from suspicion of it; 
trusting, moreover, to a good conscience, 
they wish freely to declare how far removed 
they are from so great a crime,” Calvin. 


460 THE GOSPEL OF MATTHEW. 


(see on the passage) is not a substantial variation ; neither has it been 
misunderstood by Matthew,’ and converted by him into a special means of 
recognition.? The contents of the dish were the broth charoset (011M), made 
out of dates, figs, etc., and of the color of brick (to remind those who par- 
took of it of the bricks of Egypt.* —év 76 rpvBdiw] has dipped in the dish, 
into which he has put his hand, holding a piece of bread.* 

Ver. 24. 'Yrdyer] weraBaiver ard tic évtavba Cwmc, ‘he departs from this 
present life,”” Euthymius Zigabenus. Comp. oi yeota:, arépyeobat, pn. Jesus 
is conscious that His death will be a going away to the Father (John vii. 33, 
vill. 22). — xadov, x.7.4.] well would it have been for him, etc. ; for in that 
case he would not have existed at all, and so would not have been exposed 
to the severe punishment (of Gehenna) which now awaits him.® The expres- 
sion is a popular one, and not to be urged with logical rigor, which it will 
not admit of. The fundamental idea embodied in it is : ‘‘multo melius est 
non subsistere quam male subsistere,” ‘‘it is much better not to exist at all 
than to exist, or live, in wickedness,” Jerome. Observe, further, the tragic 
emphasis with which 6 dvOpwroc éxeivoc is repeated ; but for caAdv qv without 
av, see Buttmann,® and on ov asa negative, where there is only one idea con- 
tained in the negation, consult Kiihner.” | Euthymius Zigabenus aptly ob- 
serves : ov dvéts mpowpioro, did TovTO TapéduKev’ aAAa dLdTt Tapédwxe, OLa TovTO 
Tpowploro, Tov Aeod mpoeddro¢ TO TAaVTWC AToBHobmEVvOY’ EmEAAe yap dvTw¢ aToBHvat 
ToLOvTOC Ov EK HdaEwC, GAN ex Tpoaipécewc ; ‘‘not because it had been foretold 
did he on this account betray Him ; but because he betrayed Him on this 
account had it been foretold, God foreseeing entirely the result ; for he was 
about to turn out really to be such an one as he was, not from nature but 
from his own choice.” 

Ver. 25. This final direct intimation regarding the betrayer (6 rapadidobc), 
and addressed to this latter himself, is at variance with John xiii. 26 ff., 
where ver. 29 presupposes that it had not been given. Ver. 25 is an out- 
growth of tradition, the absence of which from the older narrative of Mark 
is unquestionably correct. — od eixac] a Rabbinical formula by which an em- 
phatic affirmation is made, as in ver. 64. See Schoettgen. There is no such 
usage in the Old Testament or among classical writers. At this point in the 
narrative of Matthew, just after this declaration on the part of Jesus, we 
must suppose the withdrawal (mentioned at John xiii. 30) of Judas (who, 
notwithstanding the statement at Luke xxii. 21, was not present at the cele- 
bration of the last supper ; see on John xiii. 38, Remark) to have taken 
place. Matthew likewise, at ver. 47, presupposes the withdrawal of the 
betrayer, though he does not expressly mention it ; so that his account of 
the matter is less precise. The objection, that it was not allowable to leave 
before the Passover lamb was eaten, is sufficiently disposed of by the extraor- 


1JIn opposition to Weiss in the Stud. u. LXX. Deut. xxxiii. 24; Ruth ii. 14. 


Krit. 1861, p. 53 f. 5 Comp. Ecclus. xxiii. 14; Job iii. 1 ff. ; 
2 Holtzmann. Jer. xx. 14 ff., and the passages from Rab- 
3 Maimonides, ad Pesach. vii. 11. See Bux- binical writers in Wetstein. 

torf, Lew. Talm. p. 831. 6 Neut. Gr. pp. 188, 195 [B. 'T. 217, 226]. 


4Hom. Od. ix. 392; Aesch. Prom. 863; TTI. 2, p. 748; Buttmann, p. 299 [H.T. 347]. 


CHAP. XXVI., 26. 461 


wo 
dinary nature of the circumstances in which Judas found himself ; but 
see on ver. 26. 

Ver. 26.1 The meal—having been, naturally enough, interrupted by the 
discussion regarding Judas—would now be resumed ; hence the repetition 
of the éc@:évTwv avrov of ver. 21 with the continuative dé, which latter is so 
often used in a similar way after parentheses and other digressions, espe- 
cially in cases where previous expressions are repeated ;?— AaBor 6 "Ino. r. 
aprov| According to the Rabbis, the order of the Passover meal was as fol- 
lows :8 — (1) It began with drinking wine, before partaking of which, how- 
ever, the head of the family offered up thanks for the wine and the return 
of that sacred day (according to the school of Sammai, for the day and for 
the wine).* (2) Then bitter herbs (0°), intended to represent the bitter 
life of their forefathers in Egypt) were put upon the table, some of which 
being dipped in a sour or brinish liquid, were eaten amid thanksgivings. 
(3) The unleavened bread, the broth charoset (see on ver. 23), the lamb and 
the flesh of the chagiga (see on John xviii. 28), were now presented. (4) 
Thereupon the head of the family, after a ‘‘ Benedictus, qui creavit fructum 
terrae,” took as much of the bitter herbs as might be equal to the size of an 
olive, dipped it in the broth charoset, and then ate it, all the other guests fol- 
lowing hisexample. (5) The second cup of wine was now mixed, and at this 
stage the father, at the request of his son, or whether requested by him or not, 
was expected to explain to him the peculiarities of the several parts of this 
meal. (6) This did not take place till the Passover viands had been put a 
second time upon the table ; then came the singing of the first part of the 
Hallel (Ps. exiii., exiv.), another short thanksgiving by the father, and the 
drinking of the second cup. (7) The father then washed his hands, took two 
pieces of bread, broke one of them, laid the broken pieces upon that which 
remained whole, repeated the ‘‘Benedictus sit ille, qui producit panem e terra,” 
rolled a piece of the broken bread in bitter herbs, dipped this into the broth 
charoset, and ate, after having given thanks; he then took some of the chagiga, 
after another thanksgiving, and so also with regard to the lamb. (8) The 
feast was now continued by the guests partaking as they felt inclined, con- 
cluding, however, with the father eating the last bit of the lamb, which was 
not to be less than an olive in size, after which no one was at liberty to eat 
anything more. The father now washed his hands, and, praise having been 
offered, the third cup (13927 803) was drunk. Then came the singing of the 
second part of the Hallel (Ps.cxv.—cxviii.) and the drinking of the fourth cup, 
which was, in some instances, followed by a fifth, with the final singing of 


1On yer. 26 ff. and the parallel passages, 
see Ebrard (Dogma vom heil. Abendm. I. p. 
97 ff.), who also (II. p. 751 ff.) mentions the 
earlier literature of the subject; see be- 
sides, the controversy between Str6ébel and 
Rodatz in the Luther. Zeitschr. 1842 ff.; 
Riickert, d. Abendm., Lypz. 1856, p. 58 ff. ; 
Keim in the Jahrb. f. D. Theol. 1859, p. 63 
ff.; of modern dogmatic writers, consult, 
in particular, Kahnis and Philippi. Comp. 


on Mark xiv. 22 f.; Luke xxii. 19 f. ; 1 Cor. 
xi. 24 f: 

2 Comp. on 2 Cor. v. 8; Eph. ii. 4. 

3 See Tr. Pesach. c. 10; Otho, Lex. Rado. p. 
448 ff.; Lightfoot, p. 474 ff.; Lund, Jiid. 
Heiligth., ed. Wolf, p. 1125 ff. ; Wicheihaus, 
p. 248 ff. ; Vaihinger in Herzog’s Encykl. X14. 
p. 141 ff. 

4“ Poculum ebibit, et postea benedicit de 
lotione manuum, et lavat,’’ Maimonides. 


462 THE GOSPEL OF MATTHEW. 


Ps. cxx.—cxxxvii.*—Seeing that, according to this order, the feasting, strictly 
speaking, did not begin till No. 8, for all that preceded had the character of a 
ceremonial introduction to it ; seeing, further, that it is in itself improbable 
that Jesus would interrupt or alter the peculiarly ceremonial part of the 
feast by an act or utterance in any way foreign to it ; and considering, in 
the last place, that when Judas retired, which he did immediately after he 
was announced as the betrayer, and therefore previous to the irstitution of 
the last supper,—the Passover meal had already extended pretty far on into 
the night (John xiii. 30),—we must assume that the éofévrwv aitrav of ver. 
21, as well as the similar expression in ver. 26, should come in after No. 7, 
and that the eating under No. 8 is the stage at which the Lord’s supper was 
instituted ; so that the bread which Jesus took and brake would not be 
that mentioned under No. 7 (Fritzsche), but the dprov (with the article, see 
the critical remarks), the particular bread with which, as they all knew, He 
had just instituted the supper. He would have violated the Passover itself if 
He had proclaimed any new and peculiar symbolism in connection with the 
bread before conforming, in the first place, to the popular ceremonial ob- 
served at this feast, and before the less formal and peculiarly festive part of 
the proceedings was reached. Again, had the breaking and distributing of 
the bread been that referred to under No. 7, one cannot see why he should 
not have availed Himself of the bitter herbs as well, furnishing, as they 
would have done, so appropriate a symbol of the suffering inseparable from 
His death. —xat eidoyfoac] after having repeated a blessing—whether the 
“* Benedictus ille, qui producit panem e terra” (comp. No. 7 above), or some 
other more appropriate to the particular act about to be performed, it is im- 
possible to say. The latter, however, is the more probable, as it would be 
more in accordance with the very special nature of Christ’s feelings and in- 
tention on this occasion. Now that the meal was drawing to a close (before 
the second part of the Hallel was sung, ver. 30), He felt a desire to intro- 
duce at the end a special repast of significance so profound as never to be 
forgotten. The idea that His eiAoyeiv, as being the expression of His omnip- 
otent will,* possessed creative power, so that the body and blood became 
realized in the giving of bread and wine, may no doubt accord with the 
orthodox view of the sacrament, but can be as little justified, on exegetical 
grounds, as that orthodox view itself ; even in 1 Cor. x. 16 nothing more 
is implied than a eucharistical consecration prayer for the purpose of setting 
apart bread and wine to a sacred use. —It is, further, impossible to deter- 
mine whether by «ai édidov toic wafyr. we are to understand the handing of 
the bread piece by piece, or simply the presenting of it all at once upon a 
plate. Considering, however, that the guests were reclining, the latter is 
the more probable view, and is quite in keeping with the d8ere. This 
2aBere denotes simply a taking with the hand, which then conveys to the 
mouth the thing so taken, not also a taking in a spiritual sense (Ebrard), 
Further, it must not be inferred from the words before us, nor from our 
Lord’s interpretation (my body) of the bread which He presents, that He 


1 Bartoloce. Bibl. Rabb. Il. p. 736 ff. 2 Philippi, p. 467 ff. 


CHAP. XXVI., 26. 463 


Himself had not eaten of it. See on ver. 29. He must, however, be regarded 
as having done so before handing it to the disciples, and before uttering the 
following words. — rovré éo71 70 c@ud ov] There can be no doubt that roiro 
is the subject, and (avoiding the Lutheran synecdoche) can only refer to 
the bread that was being handed to them, and not to the living body of Christ 
(Carlstadt), nor to the predicate which first follows (Strébel), while 
it is equally certain that no emphasis of any kind is to be laid 
upon the enclitic jov (in opposition to Olshausen and Stier). But seeing, 
moreover, that the body of Jesus was still unbroken (still living), and that, 
as yet, His blood had not been shed, none of the guests can have supposed 
what, on the occasion of the first celebration of the supper, was, accordingly, 
a plain impossibility, viz., that they were in reality eating and drinking the 
very body and blood of ihe Lord,' and seeing also that, for the reason just 
stated, Jesus Himself could not have intended His simple words to be un- 
derstood in a sense which they did not then admit of,—for to suppose any 
essential difference between the first and every subsequent observance of the 
supper ” is to have recourse to an expedient that is not only unwarrantable, 
but extremely questionable,* and because, so long as the idea of the «péac is 
not taken into account, any substantial partaking of the cua alone and by 
itself, without the aiza, appears utterly inconceivable ;* for here, again, 
the idea of a spiritual body, which it is supposed Jesus might even then 
have communicated,°* belongs entirely to the region of non-exegetical and 
docetic fancies, for which even the transfiguration furnishes no support 
whatever (see on 1 Cor. x. 16), and is inconsistent with the aiya (1 Cor. xv. 
50 ; Phil. iii. 21): it follows that éori is neither more nor less than the 
copula of the symbolic statement :° ‘* This, which ye are to take and eat, this 


1 Wetstein well observes: ‘‘ Non quaere- 
bant utrum panis, quem videbant, panis 


Chr. Pers. u. Werk, IIL. 2, p. 62 
Tp: 167. 


; Stier; Gess, 


esset, vel utrum aliud corpus inconspicuum 
in interstitiis, panis delitesceret, sed quid 
haec actio significaret, cujus rei esset repraesen- 
tatio aut memoriale,’ ‘*They did not-ask 
whether the bread which they saw was 
bread, or whether some other body being 
invisible in the interstices of the bread was 
being hid, but what this action signified, of 
what thing it was the representation or me- 
morial.” Thomasius, however, as above, p. 
61, finds no other way of disposing of the 
simpleimpossibility referred to, but by main- 
taining that this giving of Himself on the 
part of the Lord was of the nature of a 
miracie, Comp. Hofmann, Schriftbew. ITI. 
2, p. 215, also Philippi, p. 433 f., who is at the 
same time disposed to assume that the 
Spirit illuminated the minds of the disciples 
as with lightning flash. The supposition of a 
miracle is certainly the /as¢ resort, and this 
on exegetical grounds is wholly unjustifi- 
able in a case in which neither the narrative 
itself nor the thing narrated implies a 
miracle. 

2 Schmid, Bibl. Theol. I. p. 341 ; Thomasius, 


8 See, on the other hand, Tholuck in the 
Stud. u. Krit. 1869, p. 126 f. 

4JIn reply to the question why Jesus dis- 
tributes the body and blood separately, 
Thomasius, p. 68, has no answer but this: ** I 
do not know.” We are accordingly met on 
the one hand with the assertion of a miracle, 
on the other with a non liguet. This is the 
way difficulties are supposed to be got over, 
but they remain, and continue to assert 
themselves all the same. There ought to be 
no hesitation in conceding that the separate 
participation, namely, of the body without 
the blood, and then of the blood by é¢se/, is 
not to be understood as an actual eating 
and drinking of them, but as due to the 
symbolism based upon the circumstance of 
the body being put to death and the blood 
shed. 

6 Olshausen; Rodatz in the Luther. 
Zeitschr. 1843, 8, p. 563 Kahnis, Avendm. p. 
453; Hofmann; Schoeberlein, wi. d. heil. 
Abendm. 1869, p. 66. 

6In the case of Luke and Paul, the ne- 
cessity of adopting the symbolical interpre- 


464 THE GOSPEL OF MATTHEW. 

broken bread,’ 7s, symbolically speaking, my body,”—the body, namely, 
which is on the point of being put to death as a Abtpov av7i roAAdv (Xx. 28). 
The symbolical interpretation has also been correctly adhered to by David 
Schulz, de Wette, Julius Miller, Bleek, Riickert, Keim, Weizsiicker ; comp. 
Ewald, Morison, Weiss on Mark, and others. According to Matthew, as 
also according to Paul (1 Cor. xi. 24, where kAéuevov is spurious), Jesus 
omits entirely the tertiwm comparationis,—an omission, however, which in 
itself is more in keeping with the vivid symbolism of the passage and the 
deep emotion of our Lord. The symbolical act of breaking, wuich cannot 
possibly have anything to do with the glorified body, but which refers solely 
to that which was about to be put to death, was sufficient to enable us to 
perceive in this breaking what the point of comparison was ; for the break- 
ing of the bread and the putting to death of the body resemble each other 
in so far as the connection of the whole is violently destroyed, so that the 
bread in fragments can no longer be said to be the bread, nor the body when 
put to death to be any longer a living being.? The eating (and the drink- 
ing), on the other hand, is a symbol of the reception and appropriation, in 
saving faith (John vi. 51 ff.), of the atoning and redeeming virtue inherent 
in the death of the body (Paul as above : 76 imép duév) and in the shedding 
of the blood of Jesus ; so that the act of receiving the elements in the con- 
sciousness of this, establishes a kowovia with the body and blood that 
is spiritually living and active, and therefore, in all ethical respects, 
genuine and real (see on 1 Cor. x. 16),—a fellowship in which the believing 
communicant realizes in his inward experience that the divine-human life 


tation of éori shows itself above all (1) in theran orthodoxy). The doctrine of the om- 


the words used with reference to the cup 
(7 Kay dtadjxyn). The new covenant has 
been made in and through the actual blood 
of Christ. This blood, inasmuch as it has 
been shed, is the essential objective causa 
effectiva of the covenant. It is so in virtue 
of the historical fact of the shedding, while it 
is this same fact that justifies its being des- 
ignated a new covenant (John xi. 25). The 
wine poured into the cup ean be said to be 
the blood of Christ as it actwally was after 
being shed on the cross, only in so far as it 
represents that real covenant-blood asit was 
previous to its being shed, and with the 
near prospect of its shedding fully in view ; 
it is this blood, but only in the sense war- 
ranted by a profound vivid symbolism. (2) 
It ison the strength of this symbolical in- 
terpretation that Luke and Paul would 
appear to have added the expression eis t. 
éunv avaunvynow to the words of the institu- 
tion. Seeon Luke xxii. 19f. The avaurvyots 
denotes a realizing of that as present which 
is 70 longer so in bodily form. 

1 Not: that which I here hand to you in 
the form of bread (the Catholic view), nor: 
that which I here hand to you in, with, and 
under the covenant (the synecdoche of Lu- 


nipresence of Christ’s body is inconsistent 
with the essential idea of a body, as was 
pointed out as early as the time of the 
Fathers, especially by Augustine : ‘‘ Caven- 
dum enim est, ne ita divinitatem adstrua- 
mus hominis, ut veritatem corporis aufera- 
mus,” “ We must beware lest we soascribe 
divinity to His manhood as to take away 
the reality of His body,” Augustine, ep. 57, 
ad Dardan. ; they understood the body of 
Christ to be in heaven, where it always re- 
mained. 

2 Philippi, p. 422 ff., is wrong in refusing 
to admit that the point of comparison lies 
in the breaking. The éxAace is the circum- 
stance above all which the whole four evan- 
gelists agree in recording, making it appear, 
too, from the terms they employ, that it was 
regarded as a special act. Moreover, the 
fact that at a very early period the spurious 
KkAdmevov Of 1 Cor. xi. 24 had come to be ex- 
tensively adopted, may be regarded as 
affording evidence in favor of the correct- 
ness of the church’s interpretation of this 
symbolical act. The same view is implied 
in the reading dpumtéuevov ; comp. Constitt. 
Ap. Viii. 12. 16, 


GHAR XVI. et. 465 


of the crucified Redeemer is being imparted to him with saving efficacy, 
and in which he acquires a full assurance of eternal life. With regard to 
the divers views that have prevailed upon this point in the church, and of 
which the two held by Protestants do not admit of being harmonized with- 
out sacrificing their distinctive peculiarities (in opposition to Ebrard, 
Lange), it may be said that those of the Catholics and Lutherans are 
exegetically at one in so far as their interpretation of the éori is concerned, 
for they agree in regarding it as the copula of actual being ; it is only when 
they attempt a more precise dogmatic definition of the mode of this actual 
being that the divergence begins to show itself. Similarly, there is no 
difference of an exegetical nature’ between the interpretation of Zwingli (and 
Oecolampadius) and that of Calvin.? On the relation of Luther’s doctrine 
to that of Calvin, see Julius Miiller’s dogmat. Abh. p. 404 ff. For éor/ (which, 
however, Jesus would not express in Aramaic, His words probably being 
WI] 8) as a copula of symbolical or allegorical being, comp. xiii. 38 f. ; 
Luke xii. 1; John x. 6, xiv. 6 ; Gal. iv. 24; Heb. x. 20; Rev. i. 20.— 
That Jesus might also have used cdpé instead of caua (comp. John. vi.) is 
clear ; in that case prominence would have been given to the material of 
which the odua is composed (comp. Col. i. 22).2 But it would not have 
been proper to use xpéa¢ (dead flesh, the flesh of what has been slain, Rom. 
xive et di Cor: vil 13).* 

Ver. 27. Matthew says indefinitely : a cup, for ré before xorfp. is spurious. 
Luke and Paul are somewhat more precise, inasmuch as they speak of the 
cup as having been the one which was presented werd 7d deurvgoa. Accord- 
ingly, the cup in question here is usually understood to have been the pocu- 
lum benedictionis, referred to above under No, 8, the third cup. But in that 
case what becomes of the fourth one, over which the second part of the 
Hallel was sung? As it is not likely that this latter would be omitted ; as 
it is no less improbable that Jesus, after investing the cup now under con- 
sideration with the symbolism of His blood, would have sent round another 
after it with which no such symbolical significance was associated ; as ver. 
29 expressly forbids the supposition of another cup having followed ; and 
as, in the last place, mention is made of the Hallel (the second portion of it) 
as coming immediately after the drinking of this one,—we are bound to sup- 
pose that it is the fourth cup that is here meant, and in regard to which 
Maimonides (as quoted by Lightfoot) observes : ‘ Deinde miscet poculum 
quartum, et super illud perficit Hallel, additque insuper benedictionem cantici 
(VW NDI), quod est: Laudent te, Domine, omnia opera tua, ete., et dicit : 
Benedictus sit, qui creavit fructum vitis, 
nocte,” ‘“'Then he mixes a fourth cup, and over it completes the Hallel, and 
adds thereupon the blessing of the canticle, Blessed be He who created the 
fruit of the vine,—and afterward he does not taste anything that night.” 
Paul, no doubt, expressly calls the cup used at the supper 70 rorfpuov rife 








et postea non quicquam gustat ista 





1 Rodatz in Rudelbach’s Zeitschr. 1848, 4, which it figures,’’ Calvin. 
p: 11. 3 Comp. Riickert, p. 69. 

2“ Externum signum diciturid esse, quod 4 See Schulz, Abendm. p. 94. 
figurat,”’ ‘‘ an outward sign is said to be that : 


‘466 THE GOSPEL OF MATTHEW. 
evaoyiac (1 Cor. x. 16), which corresponds with the name of the third cup 
(see on ver. 26) ; but, as the epexegetical 6 evAoyovuev shows, this designa- 
tion is not a terminus technicus taken from the Jewish ritual, but it is to be 
traced to the Christian standpoint, in fact, to the Christian act of consecra- 
tion. See on 1 Cor. x. 16. — For the size of the Passover cups, and what is 
said about the wine being red and mixed with water, consult Grotius and 
Lightfoot.'!— evyapior.] is substantially the same as eiAoy., ver. 26, which 
latter has reference to the phraseology of the prayer (benedictus, etc.).2 The 
1373 was a thanksgiving prayer.® 

Ver. 28. The death-symbolism is now applied to that which contains 
the life (Gen. ix. 4 ff., and comp. on Acts xv.), viz. the blood, which is 
described as sacrificial blood that is to be shed in order to make atonement 
Neither here nor anywhere else in the New Testament (Heb. xii. 24 not 
excepted) can there be any question of the glorified blood of Christ. Comp. 
on ver. 26, and on 1 Cor. x. 16. According to New Testament ideas, glori- 
fied blood is as much a contradictio in adjecto as glorified flesh. This also in 
opposition to Hofmann, p. 220. — rodro] this, which ye are about to drink, the 
wine which is in this cup. Although this wine was red, it must not be sup- 
posed that the point of the symbolism lay in the color (Wetstein, Paulus), 
but in the circumstance of its being poured out (see below : 
vou.) into the cup ; the outpouring is the symbolical correlative to the 
breaking in the case of the bread. — yap] justifies the riete . 
the ground of the interpretation given to that which is about to be drunk. 
— éori| as in ver 26. —rd aia pov tHe Suafxnc] This is the preferable read- 
ing ; see the critical remarks. ‘‘ This is my blood of the covenant,” my cove- 
nant blood (M30 DA, Ex. xxiv. 8), my blood which serves to ratify the 
covenant with God. This is conceived of as sacrificial blood (in opposition 
to Hofmann).* Ina similar way Moses ratified the covenant with God by 
means of the sacrificial blood of an animal, Ex. xxiv. 6 ff.° The connect- 
ing of the ov with aiva corresponds to the 76 cdud uov of ver. 26, as well as 
to the amplified form of our Lord’s words as given by Luke and Paul ; con- 
‘sequently we must not, with Riickert, connect the pronoun with r. dcafjxye 
(the blood of my covenant). The covenant which Jesus has in view is that 
of grace, in accordance with Jer. xxxi. 31 ff., hence called the new one (by 
Paul and Luke) in contradistinction to the old one under the law.* — 76 repi 


TO 7. TOAA. EKyv- 


. TavTec, ON 





TOAA@Y ExYvY. Eic Adeow auaptiov| Epexegesis of 7d alud pov tH¢ dSiabyKnc, by way 
of indicating who are to participate in the covenant (rep) rodAdv), the 
divine benefit conferred upon them (cic dgeo. auapr.), and the means 
by which the covenant is ratified (éxcyvvdu.) : which is shed (expressing as 
present what, though future, is near and certain) for the benefit of many, 


1JIn the Constitt. Ap. viii. 12. 16, Christ 
Himself is even spoken of as 70 moryp.ov 
Kepacas é& olvov kai vdatos, ‘ having mingled 
the cup of wine and water.” 

2Comp. xiv. 19; Luke xxiv. 30; Acts 
xxvii. 35; 1 Tim. iv. 3f.; Matt. xv. 36. 

2 Comp. on 1 Cor. xiv. 16. 

4 See Delitzsch on Heb. ix. 20. 


5 On the double genitive with only one 
noun, see Fritzsche, Quaest. Luc. p. 111 f. ; 
Lobeck, ad Aj. 309; Winer, p. 180 [E. T. 
239]. For the arrangement of the words, 
comp. Thue. iv. 85. 2: rH Te amoKAjoer mou 
ToV TVAQY. 

6 See on 1 Cor. xi. 26. 


CHAP. XXVI., 28. 467 


inasmuch as it becomes instrumental in procuring the forgiveness of sins. 
The last part of this statement, and consequently what is implied in it, viz. 
the atoning purpose contemplated by the shedding of blood (comp. Ley. 
xvii. 11), is to be understood as setting forth more precisely the idea 
expressed by repi. It must not be supposed, however, that trép, which 
is used by Luke instead of zepi, is essentially different from the latter ; but 
is to be distinguished from it only in respect of the different moral basis on 
which the idea contained in it rests (like the German wm and iiber), so that 
both the prepositions are often interchanged in cases where they have 
exactly one and the same reference, as in Demosthenes especially.! — The 
shedding of the blood is the objective medium of the forgiveness of sins ; the 
subjective medium, viz. faith, is contained by implication in the use made in 
this instance, as in xx. 28 (see on the passage), of roAAdv, as well as in the 
symbolic reference of the riere. —It is to be observed, further, that the 
genuineness of the words eic¢ ddec. duapt. is put beyond all suspicion by the 
unexceptionable evidence in their favor (in opposition to David Schulz), 
although, from their being omitted in every other record of the institution 
of the supper,? they should not be regarded as having been originally 
spoken by Christ, but as an explanatory addition introduced into the tradi- 
tion, and put into the mouth of Jesus. 


Remark 1.—That Jesus meant to institute a regular ordinance to be similarly 
observed by His church in all time coming, is not apparent certainly from the 
narrative in Matthew and Mark ; but it is doubtless to be inferred from 1 Cor. 
xi, 24-26, no less than from the practice of the apostolic church, that the apos- 
tles were convinced that such was the intention of our Lord, so much so, that 
to the words of the institution themselves was added that express injunction to 
repeat the observance éi¢ 7. éujv avauvnow Which Paul and Luke have recorded. 
As bearing upon this matter, Paul’s declaration : rapéAaBov ard Tov Kupiov, ver. 
23, is of such decisive importance that there can no longer be any doubt (Riick- 
ert, p. 124 ff.) as to whether Jesus intended to institute an ordinance for future 
observance. We cannot, therefore, endorse the view that the repetition of the 
observance was due to the impression made upon the minds of the grateful 
disciples by the first celebration of the supper (Paulus, comp. also Weisse, 
Evangelienfr. p. 195). 

Remark 2.—The two most recent and exhaustive Protestant monographs 
treating of the Lord’s supper on the lines of the Confessions, but also discuss- 
ing the subject exegetically, are : Ebrard, das Dogma vom heil. Abendm., Frankt. 
1845 f., as representing the Reformed view, and Kahnis, d. Lehre vom Abendm., 
Lpz. 1851, as representing the ZIutheran. Riickert, on the other hand, d. 
Abendm., s. Wesen. u. s. Gesch, (Lipz. 1856), ignores the Confessions altogether, 
and proceeds on purely exegetical principles. The result at which Ebrard 
arrives, p. 110 (comp. what he says, Olshausen’s Leidensgesch. 1862, p. 103), is 
as follows: ‘‘ The breaking of the bread is a memorial of the death of Jesus ; 
the eating of the bread thus broken is a symbolical act denoting that this death 
is appropriated by the believer through his fellowship with the life of Christ. 
But inasmuch as Jesus gives the bread to be eaten and the wine to be drunk, 


1See generally, on Gal. i. 4; 1 Cor. i. 13, xv. 3. 2 Also in Justin, Ap. i. 66, c. 77. 70. 


468 THE GOSPEL OF MATTHEW. 

and inasmuch as He declares those substances to be pledges of the new covenant 
in His blood, the bread and the wine are, therefore, not mere symbols, but they 
assume that he who partakes of them is an actual sharer in the atonement 
brought about by the death of Christ. And since such a fellowship with Christ’s 
death cannot exist apart from fellowship with His life ; since, in other words,” 
the new covenant ‘‘ consists in an actual connection and union,—it follows that 
partaking of the Lord’s supper involves as its result a true, personal central 
union and fellowship of life with Christ.” The result at which Kahnis arrives 
in his above-cited work published in 1851! is the orthodox Lutheran view, and 
is as follows : ‘‘ The body which Christ gives us to feed upon in the supper is 
the same that was broken for us on the cross,—just as its substratum, the bread, 
was broken,—with a view to its being eaten. The blood which Christ gives us 
to drink in the supper is the same that was shed for us on the cross,—just as 
its substratum, the wine, was poured out,—with a view to its being drunk” (p. 
104). He comes back to Luther’s synecdoche in regard to rovro, which latter he 
takes as representing the concrete union of two substances, the one of which, 
viz. the bread, constitutes the embodiment and medium of the other (the body); 
the former he understands to be, logically speaking, only accidental in its nature, 
the essential substance being brought out in the predicate. As for the second 
element, he considers that it expresses the identity of the communion blood 
with the blood of the atoning sacrifice, and that not in respect of the function. 
but of the thing itself (for he regards it as an arbitrary distinction to say that 
the former blood ratifies, and that the latter propitiates); and that, accordingly, 
the reality in point of efficacy which, in the words of the institution, is ascribed 
to the latter necessarily implies a corresponding efficacy in regard to the 
former.—By adopting the kind of exegesis that has been employed in establish- 
ing the strictly Lutheran view, it would not be difficult to make out a case in 
favor of that doctrine of transubstantiation and the mass which is still keenly 
but awkwardly maintained by Schegg, and which finds an abler but no Jess 
arbitrary and mistaken advocate in D6llinger (Christenth. u. Kirche, pp. 37 f£., 
248 ff., ed. 2), because in both cases the results are based upon the application of 
the exegetical method to dogmatic premises.—Then, in the last place, Riickert 


1JIn his Dogmatik, however (1861), I. pp. 
516, 616 ff., Il. p. 657 ff., Kahnis candidly 
acknowledges the shortcomings of the 


emitted by Christ has the effect of convey- 
ing the benefits of His death. He expresses 
himself more clearly in II. p. 557, where he 


Lutheran view, and the necessity of correct- 
ing them, and manifests, at the same time, 
a decided leaning in the direction of the 
Reformed doctrine. The supper, he says, 
“Sis the medium of imparting to the believing 
communicant, in bread and wine, the atoning 
efficacy of the body and blood of Christ that 
have been sacrificed for us, which atoning effi- 
cacy places him to whom it is imparted in 
mysterious fellowship with the body of Christ.” 
Kahnis now rejects, in particular, the Lu- 
theran synecdoche, and approves of the sym- 
bolical interpretation in so far as bread and 
wine, being symbols of Christ’s body and 
blood, constitute, in virtue of the act of 
institution, that sacramental word concern- 
ing our Lord’s body and blood which when 


says: ‘‘ The Lord’s supper is the sacrament 
of the altar which, inthe form of bread and 
wine, the symbols of the body and blood of 
Christ, which have been sacrificed for us, 
imparts to the believing communicant the 
sin-forgiving efficacy of Christ’s death.” 
Those divinely appointed symbols he re- 
gardsas the visible word concerning Christ’s 
body and blood, which word, as the terms 
of the institution indicate, is the medium 
through which the atoning power of His 
death, 7.¢., the forgiveness of sins, is com- 
municated. From the bread and wine 
Christ is supposed to create a eucharistic 
corporeality, which. He employs as the 
medium for the communication of Himself. 


CHAP) XXVI.5 29: 469 


arrives at the conclusion that, as far as Matthew and Mark are concerned, the 
whole stress is intended to be laid upon the actions, that these are to be under- 
stood symbolically, and that the words spoken serve only as hints to enable us to 
interpret the actions aright. He thinks that the idea of an actual eating of the 
body or drinking of the blood never e#tered the mind either of Jesus or of the 
disciples ; that it was Paul who, in speculating as to the meaning of the mate- 
rial substances, began to attach to them a higher importance, and to entertain 
the view that in the supper worthy and unworthy alike were partakers of the 
body and blood of Christ in the supersensual and heavenly form in which he con- 
ceived them to exist subsequent to the Lord’s ascension. In this way, accord- 
ing to Riickert, Paul entered upon a line of interpretation for which sufficient 
justification cannot be found either in what was done or in what was spoken 
by our Lord, so that his view has furnished the germs of a version of the mat- 
ter which, so far at least as its beneficial results are concerned, does not tell in 
his favor (p. 242), In answer to Riickert in reference to Paul, see on 1 Cor. x. 
16, ; 

Remark 3.—As for the different versions of the words of the institution that are 
to be met with in the four evangelists, that of Mark is the most concise (Mat- 
thew’s coming next), and, considering the situation (for when the mind is full 
and deeply moved the words are few) and the connection of this evangelist with 
Peter, it is to be regarded as the most original. Yet the supplementary state- 
ments furnished by the others are serviceable in the way of exposition, for they 
let us see what view was taken of the nature of the Lord’s supper in the apos- 
tolic age, as is pre-eminently the case with regard to the tovro moveite etc T. Equiv 
dvaurnow of Paul and Luke. Comp. on Luke xxii. 19. According to Gess., I. 
p. 147, the variations in question are to be accounted for by supposing that, 
while the elements were circulating, Jesus Himself made use of a variety of 
expressions. But there can be no doubt that on an occasion of such painful 
emotion He would utter the few thoughtful words He made use of only once for 
all. This isthe only view that can be said to be in keeping with the sad and 
sacred nature of the situation, especially as the texts do not lead us to suppose 
that there was any further speaking ; comp., in particular, Mark xiy. 23, 24. 


Ver. 29. The certainty and nearness of His death, which had just been 
expressed in the symbolism of the wine, impel Jesus to add a sorrowful but 
yet comforting assurance (introducing it with the continuative autem). — ° 
bre ob ph rho] that I will certainly not drink. According to the synoptic con- 
ception of the meal as being the one in connection with the Passover, this 
presupposes that the cup mentioned at ver. 27 f. was the last one of the 
meal (the fourth), and not the one before the last. For it may be held as 
certain that, at this feast above all, and considering His present frame of 
mind, He would take care not to give offence by omitting the fourth Pass- 
over-cup ; and what reason, it may be asked, would He have had for doing 
so? The cup in question was the concluding one, during the drinking of 
which the second portion of the Hallel was sung (ver. 80). —ardpri| from this 
present occasion, on which I have just drunk of it. To suppose that Jesus 
Himself did not also partake of the cup (Olshausen, de Wette, Riickert, 
Weiss) is a gratuitous assumption, incompatible with the ordinary Passover 
usage. We are to understand the drinking on the part of Jesus as having 


470 THE GOSPEL OF MATTHEW. 
taken place after the eiyapiotycac, ver. 27, before He handed the cup to the 
disciples, and announced to them the symbolical significance that was to 
be attached to it.1 Matthew does not mention this circumstance, because 
he did not regard it as forming part of the symbolism here in view.” — éx 
robrov Tov yevvhu. T. aur. | Tovrov isemphatic, and points to the Passover-wine. 
Mark and Luke are less precise, not having rotrov. From this it must not 
be assumed that Jesus never drank any wine after His resurrection.? For 
yévynua as used by later Greek writers (likewise the LXX.) in the sense of 
xapréc, see Lobeck, ad Phryn. p. 286. For the reasons for rejecting the 
reading yevfaroc (Lachmann, Tischendorf), notwithstanding the far greater 
number of testimonies in its favor, see Fritzsche on Mark, p. 619 f. The 
use of this term instead of oivoc has something solemn about it, containing, 
as it does, an allusion to the form of thanksgiving for the Passover wine : 
‘*benedictus sit, qui creavit fructum vitis.” Comp. Lightfoot on ver. 27. 
—kavév| novum, different in respect of quality ; ‘‘novitatem dicit plane 
singularem,” ‘‘it indicates evidently a peculiar newness,” Bengel ; not 
This conception of the new Passover wine, which is to be the 
product of the coming aeon and of the glorified xricvc, is connected with 
the idea of the renewal of the world in view of the Messianic kingdom.‘ 
To understand the new celebration of the Passover in the perfected kingdom 
only in a figurative sense, corresponding somewhat to the feasts of the pa- 
triarchs, alluded to at viii. 11,° would, in presence of such a characteristic 
allusion to the Passover, be as arbitrary on the one hand as the referring of 
the expression® to the period subsequent to the resurrection of Jesus (Acts x. 
41) would be erroneous on the other, and that on account of the roérov and 
the words év 77 Baoid. 7. 7. w., Which can only be intended to designate the 
kingdom of Messiah. It is wrong to take xavvév, as Kuinoel and Fritzsche 
have done, in the sense of iterwm, for it is a characteristic predicate of the 
wine that it is here in question ; besides, had it been otherwise, we should 
have had anew: é« kaye,’ or the ordinary waaw of the New Testament. 

Ver. 30. ‘Yurfoavrec] namely, the second portion of the Hallel (Ps. exv.— 
exvili.).6 Jesus also took part in the singing.® — é&7A@ov, «.7.2.] The regu- 
lation (comp. Ex. xii. 22), which required that this night should be spent 
in the city,’ appears not to have been universally complied with.” 

Ver. 31. Tére] whilst they were going out, ver. 36. —dvrec] put first so 
as to be highly emphatic. —oxavdai. |" In this instance it means : instead 
of standing faithfully by me till the last, ye will be cowardly enough to run 


Tecens, VEOV. 


1 Comp. Chrysostom. 

2Euthymius Zigabenus correctly ob- 
serves: el 6€ Tov motypiov petéaxe, meTEAaBev 
apa kai Tov aptov, ‘‘If he partook of the cup, 
then he shared also the bread.’’? Comp. on 
ver. 26. 

3 Acts x. 41; Ignat. Smyrn. 3. 

4 Luke xxii. 16, comp. ver. 30. 

5 “Vos aliquando mecum in coelosumma 
laetitia et felicitate perfruemini,’’ “ you at 
some time shall fully enjoy with me in 


heaven the highest joy and felicity,” 
Kuinoel, Neander. 

®§ Chrysostom, 
Miinster, Clarius. 

7 Thue. iii. 92. 5. 

® See Buxtorf, Lex. Talm. p. 618 f. 

* Comp. Justin, ¢. 77. 106. 

10 Lightfoot, p. 564. 

11 See Yosapht in Pesach. 8 in Lightfoot, 
minister. templi, p. 727. 

12 Comp. on xi. 6. 


Euthymius Zigabenus, 


CHAP. XXVI., 32-36. 471 
away and leave me to my fate, and thus show that your faith has not been 
able to bear the brunt of the struggle.’ With what painful astonishment 
these words must have filled the disciples, sincerely conscious as they were 
of their faithful devotion to their Master ! Accordingly this announcement 
is followed up with quoting the prediction in which the tragic event is fore- 
told. The passage here introduced with yéyp. yap is from Zech. xiii. 7 
(quoted with great freedom). In the shepherd who, according to this pas- 
sage, is to be smitten, Jesus sees a typical representation of Himself as de- 
voted to death by God, so that the words cannot have had reference (Ewald, 
Hitzig) to the foolish shepherd (ch. xi. 15 ff.), but only to the one appointed 
by God Himself (Hofmann), whose antitype is Jesus, and His disciples the 
scattered sheep. ? 

Ver. 32 f. Ilpoetav ta Aurnpa, mpodéyet kai 7a Tapaurvdovmeva, ‘‘ Having told 
them before of sorrowful things, He also foretells of consoling things,” 
Euthymius Zigabenus.—They were again to gather around Him in Galilee, 
the native scene of His ministry. Comp. xxviii. 10. The authenticity of 
these words in their present form may be called in question, in so far as 
Christ cannot have predicted His resurrection in such explicit terms. See 
on xvi. 21. The answer of Peter, given in the bold self-contidence of his 
love, savors somewhat of self-exaltation ; consequently the impression made 
upon him by the experience of his shortcomings was all the deeper. 

Ver. 34 f. Ipiv atéxropa duvijca| before a cock crows, therefore before the 
day begins to dawn. Cock-crowing occurs in the third of the four night 
watches (see on xiv. 24), which watch lasted from midnight till about three 
o'clock, and is called aiextopodwvia in Mark xiii. 35.° For a later modifica- 
tion of the expression in conformity with the repeated denials, see Mark xiv. 
30.4 This prediction as to the time was subsequently confirmed by the actual 
crowing of a cock, ver. 74. —arapvioy pe| thou wilt deny me, deny that I am 
thy Lord and Master.° For civ coi aroé., comp. John xi. 16. —azapr- 
jooua| The future after oi ui° israther more expressive of a confident asser- 
*tion than the. subjunctive, the reading of A E G, etc. — duoiwe Kat ravrtec, 
x.7.4. | Considering the sincere but as yet untried love of each, this is not an 
improbable statement, though it is found only in Matthew and Mark. 

Ver. 36. Tefonuavy or, according to a still better attested form, Te@oyuavei 
(Lachmann, Tischendorf), is most likely the Greek equivalent of the Hebrew 
{DW HA, an oil-press. It was a plot of ground,’ perhaps a small estate with 


‘ 


1 Comp. John xvi. 32. See ver. 56. 

2 Comp. Hengstenberg, Christol. III. 1, p. 
528. 

3 For the opposite of the mpiv ad. dwv., see 
Plat. Symp. p. 223 C: mpos nmépay Hd adex- 
Tpvovwv adovTwyr, ‘already near day, the cocks 
crowing ;” Lucian, Ocyp. 670 : émet 8 adextwp 
neEepav eoadAmoer, “but since the cock pro- 
claimed the day ;’’ Horace, Sat. i. 1. 10. 

4On the question as to whether or not 
adextwp can be considered good Greek, con- 
sult Lobeck, ad Phryn. p. 228 f. 


5 Comp. Celsus in Origen, ii. 45: ov7e 
cvvaredavov ovTe Umepamédavoy avTov, ovdé 
KoAdoewv Katappovery eémetodnoav, adda kat 
Hpvjcavto elvar padyrai, ‘* They neither died 
with Him, nor died for Him, they were not 
even persuaded to despise chastisements, 
but they also denied that they were His 
disciples.” 

6 See Hartung, Partikel. p. 157 ; Winer, p. 
471 f. [E. T. 635]. 

7 ywpiov, John iy. 5; Acts i. 18, iv. 34, v. 3, 
XXviil. 7. 


ARR THE GOSPEL OF MATTHEW. 

a garden (John xviii. 1) ; according to Keim, an olive-yard where nobody 
lived. If the place was not public property, Jesus, according to John xix. 
2, must have been on friendly terms with the owner. On the place (the 
present Dschesmanije), which subsequent tradition has fixed upon as the site 
of the ancient Gethsemane,’— aitov] here ; the only other instances in the 
New Testament are found in Acts xy. 34, xviii. 19, xxi. 4; of frequent 
occurrence in classical writers. — éxei] pointing toward the place. 

Ver. 37 f. Anticipating the inward struggle that awaited Him, He retired 
farther into the garden, taking with Him none (xvii. 1) but the three most 
- intimate disciples. — jpfaro] indicating the jirst symptoms of the condition 
in question. —Avreicfa: x. adnuoveiv] Climax. Suidas explains adyyuov. as 
meaning : Aiav Avreiofar.? — repidvroc] very sorrowful, Ps. xliii. 5. The oppo- 
site of this is repeyaphe. —7 wvyh wov] Comp. John xii. 27.‘ The soul, the in- 
termediate element through which the spirit (ro tveiua, ver. 41) is connected 
with the body in the unity of the individual,’ is the seat of pleasure and pain.° 
—wc Yavdrov]| defining the extent of the repiAvmog : unto death, so as almost 
to cause death, so that I am nearly dead from very grief ; Jonah iv. 9 ; Isa. 
XXXvVill. 1 ; and see on Phil. ii. 27. The idea of the mors infernalis (Calo- 
vius), as though Christ had been experiencing the pains of hell, is here exe- 
getically unwarrantable.’ — peivare . . . iuov| ‘In magnis tentationibus juvat 
solitudo, sed tamen, ut in propinquo sint amici,” ‘‘In great trials solitude is 
a help, but yet only as friends may be near at hand,” Bengel. 

Ver. 39. Mixpév] belongs to zpoeadav : after He had gone forward a short 
distance.* — iri rpécwrov avtov| The article was not necessary before zpécur7. 
(in opposition to Fritzsche, who takes airov as meaning there). Comp. Xi. 
10, xvii. 6, and elsewhere.? Bengel appropriately observes : ‘‘in faciem, 
non modo in genua ; summa demissio,” ‘‘on His face, not only on His 
knees ; the lowliest humility.” — ei duvarév éotc] ethical possibility according 
to the divine purpose. Similarly the popular expression ravra duvara cor is 
to be understood, according to the sense in which Jesus uses it, as implying 
the necessary condition of harmony with the divine will. —rd rorfpiov rovro| # 
z.é., this suffering and death immediately before me. Comp. xx. 22. — 
TAqv ovy, K.t.A.| The wish, to which in His human dread of suffering He 
gave utterance, that, if possible, He should not be called upon to endure it 
(éderEe TO avOpzivov, Chrysostom), at once gives place to absolute submission, 
John vy. 30, vi. 88. The word to be understood after ci (@éAec) is not 
yevéodw, but, as corresponding with the oiy (not p%, observe), yevyoeras, or 
éora, in Which the petitioner expresses his final determination. It may be 
observed further, that the broken utterance is in keeping with the deep 


“1See Robinson, Pal. I. p. 389; Tobler, d. 
Siloahquelle u. d. Oelberg, 1852. 

2 See Buttmann, Lewilog. II. p. 135 f. ; Ael. 
V. H. xiii. 3; Phil. ii. 26. 

33 Edsr. viii. 71 f. ; Isoer. p.11 B; Aristot. 
Eth. iv.3; Diog. L. vii. 97. 

4 Xen. Hell. iv. 4. 3: adnpnovjoat tas Wuxas. 

5 See Beck, Bibl. Seelent. p. 11. 

® Comp. Stirm in the Tvb. Zeitschr. 1834, 


3, Dp. 25 ff. 

7 Euthymius Zigabenus correctly ob- 
serves : davepwrepov cEayopever THY aatéverav 
THs piaEews ws avdpwros. 

® For pixpovy comp. Xen. Cyrop. iv. 2.6 
(utkpov mopevdévtes): Hist. Gr. vii. 2. 13 
(ucxpov & avtovs mpomepartes. 


® Winer, p. 116 [E. T, 152]. 


CHAP. XXVI., 40-42. 473 


emotion of our Lord. —For dc, which, so far as the essential meaning is 
concerned, is identical with the relative pronoun, comp. Hermann.’ 

Ver. 40. The fact that the disciples slept, and that these disciples did so 
in circumstances such as the present, and that all three gave way, and that 
their sleep proved to be of so overpowering a character, is, notwithstanding 
Luke’s explanation that it was azd tic Aime (xxii. 45), a psychological 
mystery, although, after utterances of Jesus so manifestly authentic as those 
of vv. 40 and 45, the statement that they did sleep is not to be regarded as 
unhistorical, but is to be taken as implying that Jesus had spent a consider- 
able time in prayer, and that the disciples, in consequence of their deep 
mental exhaustion, found it impossible to keep awake. — xai] three times ; 
the narrative is characterized by a simple pathos. -—7@ Ilérpw] to him He 
addressed words that were equally applicable to them all; but then it was 
he who a little ago had surpassed all the others in so boldly declaring how 
much he was prepared to do for his Master, vv. 33, 35. —otrwc] siecine, 
thus, uttered with painful surprise, is to be taken in connection with what 
follows, without inserting a separate mark of interrogation (in opposition to 
Euthymius Zigabenus and Beza).? 

Ver. 41. ‘Iva] indicating, not the object of the xpocebyeode, but purpose, 
and that of the watching and praying. — eioé2.Syre ei¢ eipacjév| in order that 
ye may not be betrayed into circumstances in which ye might be led to show 
yourselves unfaithful to me (into the cxavdaAivecda of ver. 31). Comp. 
vi. 13. By watching and praying, as a means of maintaining clearness of 
judgment, freedom, and a determination to adhere to Christ, they were to 
avoid getting into such outward circumstances as might prove dangerous to 
their moral wellbeing. The watching here is no doubt of a physical nature 
(ver. 40), but the zpoceiyeod a has the effect of imparting to it the character 
and sacredness belonging to spiritual watchfulness (Col. iv. 2).— 1d pév 
Tverd, K.7.2.] a general proposition (all the more telling that it is not intro- 
duced with a yap), intended to refer, by way of warning, to the circum- 
stances in which the disciples were placed, as though it had been said : ye 
are no doubt, so far as the principle of your ethical life in its general aim 
and tendency is concerned, willing and ready to remain true to me ; but on 
the individual side of your nature, where the influence of sense is so strong, 
you are incapable of resisting the temptations to unfaithfulness by which 
you are beset.* In order, therefore, to avoid getting into a predicament in 
which, owing to the weakness in question, you would not be able to with- 
stand the overmastering power of influences fatal to your salvation without 
the special protection and help of God that are to be obtained through vigi- 
lance and prayerfulness, watch and pray ! 

Ver. 42 ff. Macy éx devrépov] a well-known pleonasm. John xxi. 15 ; Acts 
x. 15.4— ei] not guandoquidem (Grotius), but : 77. The actual feelings of 


1 Ad Hom. h.in Cer. 172. shrinks back and has no power’ (to resist). 
2 Comp. 1 Cor. vi. 5. 4 Comp. Sevrepov madw, Plat. Polit. p. 260 
3 Comp. on John iii. 6. Euthymius Ziga- D, atts madcv (p. 282 C), and such like. We 


benus: 7 6€ capé, aovdevins oboa, UrooTeAAeTar sometimes find even a threefold form: 
lL ovK ev Cate S i veak y) 3 waduv, Soph. Phil. 940, O. C. 1421 
kat ovk evrovet, “‘the flesh, being weak, avdis av mad, Soph. Liv, 940, O. : 


474. THE GOSPEL OF MATTHEW. 


Jesus are expressed in all their reality in the form of acquiescence in that 
condition of impossibility (ov divarac) as regards the divine purpose which pre- 
vents the thing from being otherwise. — rovro] without 70 rorjpiov (see the 
critical remarks) : this, which I am called upon to drink. — éav yA avTd rio] 
without my having drunk it ; if it cannot pass from me unless it is drunk. — 
yernOto rd OéAnud cov] this is the iraxoy wexpi Savatov oravpov, Phil. ii. 8 ; 
Rom. v. 19. Observe in this second prayer the climax of resignation and 
submission ; His own will, as mentioned in ver. 39, is completely silenced. 
Mark’s account is here less precise. — Ver. 43. joav yap, x.7.2. | for their eyes 
(see on vili. 3) were heavy (weighed down with drowsiness).’— Ver. 44. é& 
tpitov] belongs to pooyif. Comp. 2 Cor. xii. 8. —r. air. Ady.] as is given 
at ver. 42. 

Ver. 45. The annoyance at finding the disciples asleep (ver. 40 : obra¢ ov« 
ioytoate, K.7.2.) now deepens into an intensely painful irony: ‘sleep on 
now, and have out your rest” (the emphasis is not on 7d Aoxédv, but on 
kabebdere x. avax.) | He had previously addressed them with a ypyyopeire, but 
to how little purpose ! and, accordingly, He now turns to them with the 
sadly ironical abandonment of one who has no further hope, and tells them 
to do quite the reverse : sleep on, etc.” On Aorév and 76 Aourdv, for the rest of 
the time, in the sense of jam (Vulgate), henceforward (Plat. Prot. p. 321 C), 
see Schaefer, ad Long. p. 400; Jacobs, ad Philostr. p. 633. Comp. on Acts 
xxvii. 20. To object, as is frequently done, that the ironical view does not 
accord with the frame of mind in which Jesus must have been, is to fail to 
appreciate aright the nature of the situation. Irony is not inconsistent even 
with the deepest anguish of soul, especially in cases where such anguish is 
also accompanied with such clearness of judgment as we find in the present 
instance ; and consider what it was for Jesus to see such an overpowering 
tendency to sleep on the part of His disciples, and to find everything so dif- 
ferent from what He needed, and might reasonably have expected ! Winer, 
p. 292 [E. T. 391], following Chrysostom, Theophylact (who, however, 
admits the plausibility of the ironical view), and Grotius, excludes the idea 
of irony, and interprets thus : ‘‘ sleep on, then, as you are doing, and take 
your rest,” which words are supposed to be spoken permissively in accord- 
ance with the calm, mild, resigned spirit produced by the prayers in which 
He had just been engaged. This is also substantially the view of Kuinoel, 
de Wette, Morison, Weiss on Mark ; and see even Augustine, who says : 
“¢verba indulgentis eis jamsomnum.” But the idea that any such indulgence 
was seriously intended, would be incompatible with the danger referred to 
at ver. 41, and which He knew was threatening even the disciples themselves. 
There are others, again, who are disposed to take the words interrogatively, 
thus : are ye still asleep ? Such is the view of Henry Stephens, Heumann, 
Kypke, Krebs, in spite of the ordinary usage with regard to 16 Aourdv, to 
understand which in the sense of ‘‘ henceforth” (Bleek, Volkmar) would be 
entirely out of keeping with the use of the present here. If, however, the 


1 Comp. Eur. Alc. 385. natus, Bengel, Jansen, Michaelis, Fritzsche, 
2 Comp. Euthymius Zigabenus, Beza, Mtin- Keim, Ewald. 
ster, Erasmus, Caivin, Er. Schmid, Maldo- 


CHAP. XXVI., 46. AN5 


mark of interrogation be inserted after xaBeidere, and 1d Aourdv Kat dvarabeobe 
be then taken imperatively (Klostermann), in that case xai would have the 
intensive force of even; but its logical position would have to be before rd 
Aoirév, not before avaravecbe, Where it could be rendered admissible at all 
only by an artificial twisting of the sense (‘‘ now you may henceforth rest on, 
even as long as you choose””).—While Jesus is in the act of uttering His xa6eb- 
dete, k.t.A., He observes the hostile band approaching ; the painful irony 
changes to a painful earnestness, and He continues in abrupt and disjointed 
words : idod, yyixev, «.7.A. The 7 apa should be taken absolutely: hora 
Jatalis, John xvii. 1. The next clause describes in detail the character of 
that hour. —ei¢ yeipac duapt.| into sinners’ hands. He refers to the members 
of the Sanhedrim, at whose disposal He would be placed by means of His ap- 
prehension, and not to the Romans,’ nor to both of these together (Lange). 
The rapad.otc is not God, but Judas, acting, however, in pursuance of the di- 
vine purpose, Acts ii. 23. 

Ver. 46. Observe the air of quick despatch about the words éyzipecbe, ayo- 
nev, ido. —dywuev] is not a summons to take to flight, in consequence per- 
haps of a momentary return of the former shrinking from suffering (which 
would be inconsistent with the fact of the victory that had been achieved, 
and with the clear consciousness which He had that 6 vidc tr. a. rapadidorac, 
k.t.A. ver. 45), but: to go to meet the betrayer, with a view to the fulfilling 
of the zapadidorar of which He had just been speaking. Kavrevfev édevgev, 
ore éxov arofaveira, ‘‘ And thereupon He made it clear that He willingly is 
about to suffer death,” Euthymius Zigabenus. 


Remarx.—On the agony in the garden (see, in general, Ullmann, Siindlos., ed. 
7, p. 127 ff.; Dettinger in the Tiib. Zeitschr. 1837, 4, 1838, 1; Hofmann, 
Schriftbew, IL. 1, p. 306 ff, ; Keim, III. p. 306 ff.), the following points may be 
noted : (1) As to the nature of it, we must not regard it simply as bodily suffer- 
ing (Thiess, Paulus), nor as consisting in sorrow on account of the disciples 
and the Jews (Jerome), nor as pain caused by seeing His hopes disappointed 
(Wolfenbiittel Fragments), nor as grief at the thought of parting from His friends 
(Schuster in Eichhorn’s Bibl. IX. p. 1012 ff.) ; but, as the prayer vv. 39, 42 
proves, as consisting in fear and dread of the cruel suffering and death that were so 
near at hand, the prospect of which affected Christ—whose sensibilities were 
purely human, and not of the nature of a philosophical abstraction, like the 
imperturbability of Socrates or the apathy of the Stoic (Celsus, in Origen, ii. 
24, charges Him with cowardice)—all the more powerfully in proportion to the 
greater purity, and depth, and genuineness of His feelings, and the increasing 
distinctness with which He foresaw the approach of the painful and, according 
to the counsel of the Father, inevitable issue. For having been victorious 
hitherto over every hostile power, because His hour had not yet come (John vii. 
30, viii. 20), He realized, now that it was come (ver. 45), the whole intensity of 
horror implied in being thus inevitably abandoned, in pursuance of God’s 
redemptive purpose, to the disposal of such powers, with the immediate pros- 
pect before Him of a most dreadful death, a death in which He was expected, 


1 Maldonatus, Grotius, Hilgenfeld. 


46 THE GOSPEL OF MATTHEW. 


and in which He Himself desired, to manifest His perfect obedience to the 
Father’s will. The momentary disturbing of the complete harmony of His will 
with that of God, which took place in Gethsemane, is to be ascribed to the 
human dofévera incidental to His state of humiliation (comp. 2 Cor, xili. 4; 
Heb. v. 7), and should be regarded simply as a natural shrinking from suffer- 
ing and death, a shrinking entirely free from sin (comp. Dorner, Jesu siindlose 
Vollkommenh. p. 6 f.). Neither was it in any way due to the conviction, unwar- 
rantably ascribed to Him by Schenkel, that His death was not absolutely 
necessary for the redemption of the world. That touch of human weak- 
ness should not even be described as sin in embryo, sin not yet developed 
(Keim), because the absolute resignation to the Father’s will which immedi- 
ately manifests itself anew precludes the idea of any taint of sin whatever. To 
suppose, however, that this agony must be regarded (Olshausen, Gess) as an 
actual abandonment by God, i.e., as a withdrawing of the presence of the higher 
powers from Jesus, is to contradict the testimony of Heb. v. 7, and to suppose 
what is inconsistent with the very idea of the Son of God (Strauss, IT. p. 441) ; 
and to explain it on the ground of the vicarious character of the suffering 
(Olshausen, Ebrard, Steinmeyer, following Luther, Melanchthon, Calvin, Beza, 
and the dogmatic writers of the orthodox school), as though it were to be 
regarded as ‘‘a concrete bearing of the whole concentrated force of a world’s 
sin’’ (Ebrard), and of the wrath of God in all its fulness (comp. Thomasius, IIT. 
1, p. 69 f.; Weber, v. Zorne Gottes, p. 266 ff.), is erroneously to take a materi- 
alistic and quantitative view of the iAacrjpiov of Jesus ; whereas Scripture esti- 
mates His atoning death according to its qualitative value,—that is to say, it 
regards the painful death to which the sinless Son of God subjected Himself in 
obedience to the Father’s will as constituting the efficient cause of the atone- 
ment, and that not because He required to undergo such an amount of suffering 
as might be equivalent in quantity and intensity to the whole sum of the pun- 
ishment due to mankind, but because the vicarious Avrpov on behalf of human- 
ity consisted in the voluntary surrender of His own life. Comp. ver. 27 f., xx. 
Mysho diolmat ai, VANS AL djolobey iil, PAs shhly Gy pened noni. (> A (Clore Qr5 PAL (Cpu auth, 13}. 
But it would be unwarrantable, on the other hand, to ascribe the dread which 
Jesus felt merely to the thought of death as a divine judgment, and the agonies of - 
which He was supposed to be already enduring by anticipation (K6stlin in the 
Jahrb. f. D. Theol. III. p. 125). Those who adopt this view lay great stress upon 
the sinlessness of our Lord as tending to intensify this painful anticipation of 
death (Dettinger, comp. Ullmann, Neander). (2) John, notwithstanding the fact 
that he was both an eye and ear witness of the agony in Gethsemane, makes 
no mention of it whatever, although he records something analogous to it as 
having taken place somewhat earlier, xii. 27. With the view of accounting for this 
silence, it is not enough to suppose that John had omitted this incident because 
it had been sufficiently recorded by the other evangelists, for a mere external 
reason such as this would accord neither with the spirit of his Gospel nor with 
the principle of selection according to which it was composed (in opposition to 
Liicke, Tholuck, Olshausen, Ebrard). We should rather seek the explanation 
of the matter in the greater freedom which characterizes the composition of this 
Gospel, and therefore in the peculiarities of style and form which are due to 
this work of John being an independent reproduction of our Lord’s life. After 
the prayer of Jesus, which he records in ch. xvii., John felt that the agony could 
not well find a place in his Gospel, and that, after xii. 23 ff., there was no reason 


CHAP. XXVI., 47, 48. 477 


why it should be inserted any more than the ery of anguish on the cross. 
Comp. Ewald, Gesch. Chr. p. 557 f. In John, too, ch. xviii., the transition from 
acting to suffering is somewhat abrupt (in opposition to Hofmann) ; but after 
the high-priestly prayer, the suffering appears as one series of victories culmi- 
nating in the triumphant issue of xix. 30; in fact, when Jesus offered up that 
prayer, He did so as though He were already victorious (xvi. 33). It is quite 
unfair to make use of John’s silence either for the purpose of throwing dis- 
credit upon the synoptic narrative (Goldhorn in Tzschirner’s Magaz. f. chr. 
Pred. 1, 2, p. 1 ff. ; Schleiermacher, L. J. p. 422 f.), or as telling against John 
(Bretschneider, Probab. p. 33 ff. ; Weisse, II. p. 268; Baur, Keim ; likewise 
Theile in Winer’s Journ. II. p. 353 ff., comp. however, his Biogr. Jesu, p. 62), 
or with a view to impugn the historical character of both narratives (Strauss, 
Bruno Bauer). 'The accounts of the two earliest evangelists bear the impress of 
living reality to such an extent that their character is the very reverse of that 
which one expects to find in a legend (in opposition to Gfrérer, Heil. Sage, p. 
337; Usteri in the Stud. wu. Kril. 1829, p. 465) ; nor is there any reason why, 
even after the high-priestly prayer, such an agony as that in question should 
not find a place in the Gospel narrative ; for who shall presume to say what 
changes of feeling, what elevation and depression of spirit, may not have taken 
place on the eve of such a catastrophe in a heart so noble, so susceptible, and 
so full of the healthiest sensibilities, and that not in consequence of any moral 
weakness, but owing to the struggle that had to be waged with the natural 
human will (comp. Gess, p. 175 , Weizsiicker, p. 563)? Comp. John, remark 
after ch. xvii. (3) The report of Jesus’ prayer should not be (unpsychologically) 
supposed to have been communicated by the Lord Himself to His disciples, 
but ought rather to be regarded as derived from the testimony of those who, 
before sleep had overpowered them, were still in a position to hear at least the 
first words of it. 


Ver. 47. Eilc rév dédexa] precisely as in ver. 14, and repeated on both oc- 
casions in all three evangelists. In the oral and written tradition this tragic 
designation ' had come to be so stereotyped that it would be unconsciously in- 
serted without there being any further occasion for doing so. The same 
holds true with regard to 6 rapadidov¢ aitév, ver. 48, xxvii. 3. — dyAo0¢ roa] 
Matthew makes no reference to the Roman cohort, John xviii. 3; his 
account, however, does not, at the same time, exclude it, as it is simply 
less precise. Luke xxii. 52 likewise represents the high priests and elders as 
appearing at this early stage among the throng ; but this is an unwarrant- 
able amplification of the tradition ; see on Luke. — fidwr] eudgels, fustibus 
(Vulgate).? — ard trav, «.7.4.] belongs to 72% ; see on Gal. ii. 12. 

Ver. 48. It is usual, though unwarrantable (see on John xviii. 24), to 
take édwxev in the sense of the pluperfect (comp. Mark xiv. 44), in which case 
it is necessary, with Ewald, to make ver. 48 a parenthesis. The Vulgate 
correctly renders by : dedit. He communicated the signal to them «while they 
were on the way . — bv dy giAhow, x.r.4.| Fritzsche insertsa colon after g:Ajoo, 
and supposes the following words to be understood : est vobis comprehenden- 


1 katynyopta, Euthymius Zigabenus. 
2 Herod. ii. 63, iv. 180 ; Polyb. vi. 36. 3. Wetstein on the passage. 


448 THE GOSPEL OF MATTHEW. 


dus. It may be given more simply thus : Whomsoever TI shall have kissed, He 
it is (just He, no other is the one in question) !_ This avré¢ serves to single 
out the person intended, from those about Him.! 

Ver. 49. Ev@éwc] is not to be taken with <ize (Fritzsche), but with mpoceAav : 
immediately, as soon as he had given them this signal, he stepped up, etc. No 
sooner said than done. —karedidnoev] embraced and kissed Him, kissed Him 
most endearingly.? It is not the case, as de Wette imagines (see Luke vii. 
38, 45 ; Acts xx. 37), that in the New Testament (and the LXX.) the com- 
pound has lost the force here ascribed to it ; but itis to beinsisted on in our 
present passage as much as in classical Greek. The signal, as arranged, was 
to be simply a kiss ; the signal actually given was kissing accompanied with 
embraces, which was entirely in keeping with the excitement of Judas, and 
the desire he felt that there should be no mistake as to the person intended. 

Ver. 50. ‘Eraipe| as in xx. 13, —é¢@’ 6 rdpec] As the relative dc is never used 
in a direct,* but only in an indirect question,* it follows that the ordinary 
interrogative interpretation must be wrong ; and that to suppose ® that we 
have here one of those corrupt usages peculiar to the Greek of a less classi- 
cal age, is, so far as é¢ is concerned, without any foundation whatever. 
Fritzsche, followed by Buttmann,* understands the expression as an exclama- 
tion: ‘‘ad qualem rem perpetrandam ades!” ‘‘for accomplishing what 
sort of matter you are here !” But even then, Greek usage would have re- 
quired that it should have been put in an interrogative form and expressed 
by ri, or failing this we might have had the words é9’ oiov instead.” The 
language, as might be expected from the urgent nature of the situation, is 
somewhat abrupt in its character : Mriend, mind what you are here for! 
attend to that. With these words He spurns the kisses with which the traitor 
was overwhelming Him. This suits the connection better than the supplying 
of eixé (Morison). Instead of this hypocritical kissing, Jesus would prefer 
that Judas should at once proceed with the dark deed he had in view, and 
deliver Him tothe catchpolls.—John xviii. 3 ff., it is true, makes no 
mention whatever of the kissing ; but this is not to be taken as indicating 
the legendary character of the incident, especially as there is nothing to pre- 
vent us from supposing that it may have taken place just before the question 
tiva Cyreite, John xviii. 4 ; see on this latter passage. 

Ver. 51. It is strange that the Synoptists have not mentioned the name of 
Peter here (John xviii. 10, where the name of the high priest’s servant is 
also given). It may be that, with a view to prevent the apostle from getting 
into trouble with the authorities, his name was suppressed from the very 
first, and that, accordingly, the incident came to be incorporated in the 
primitive gospel traditions without any names being mentioned, it having 


1 Hermann, ad Viger. p. 733. 3 See Lobeck, ad Phryn. p. 5%. 
2Xen. Mem. ii. 6. 33: os rods pév Kadovs 4 Kiihner, II. 2, p. 942; Ellendt, Lex. Soph. 
diAyjoavtos ov, Tovs 8 ayatovs katapiAnoayvTos, I. p. 372. 
““asI shall then caress the beautiful and 5 Winer, p. 157 [E. T. 207 f.] 
also warmly caress the good; Tob. vii. 6 Neut. Gr. p. 217 [E. T. 258]. 
6; Ecclus. xxix. 5; 3 Macc. v. 49; Vest. XZ. 7 Ellendt, as above, p. 300 f. 


patr. p. 730. 


CHAP. XXVI., 52—54. 479 


been reserved for John ultimately to supply this omission. — airoi 75 driov] 
his ear (see on viii. 3).’ He missed the head at which the stroke was aimed. 

Ver. 52. Put back thy sword into its place (@jxnv, John xviii. 11 ; Koredv, 1 
Chron. xxi. 27). A pictorial representation ; the sword was uplifted. — 
mavrec yap, x.7.A.] All, who have taken a sword, will perish by the sword,—an 
ordinary axiom in law (Rev. xiii. 10) adduced for the purpose of enforcing 
His disapproval of the unwarrantable conduct ef Peter, not a xpodyreia tij¢ 
Stagfopac TOV éxeAPbvTwv aT "Iovdaiay, ‘‘ prophecy of the destruction of the 
Jews who had come against Him” (Euthymius Zigabenus, comp. Grotius), 
nor ‘‘an édeal sentence of death” (Lange) pronounced upon Peter—all such in- 
terpretations being foreign to our passage. Luther, however, fitly observes : 
“‘Those take the sword who use it without proper authority.” 

Ver. 53. "H] 07, in case this should not be sufficient to induce thee to 
. thrust back thy sword. — dprc] this instant. See on Gal. i. 10, — The inter- 
rogation does not extend merely as far as yov, in which case it would lose 
much of its significance, while the language would be rendered too abrupt, 
but on to ayyéAwv 5 yet not as though «ai (for that, 67.) introduced a broken 
construction, but thus : Thinkest thou that Iam not able... and He will 
(not) place at my side, etc.? so that I can thus dispen’e entirely with thy 
protection !_ The force of the negative runs through the whole sentence. 
— tieiw dddeKxa Aeyedvac ayyéAwy (see the critical remarks) is a genuine Attic 
usage, according to which it is permissible to have the neuter rAciov or rieiw 
without a change of construction, or even without inserting 7.2 The number 
twelve corresponds to the number of the apostles, because of these only one 
had shown a disposition to defend him. 

Ver. 54. Idec oiv|] How, in that case, could it be, if, that is, I were to be 
defended by thee or angel hosts, how could it be possible that, etc. In his 
comment on ovv, Euthymius Zigabenus aptly analyzes it as follows : e& 
oitwo avaipeO>. For rac, comp. on xxiii. 83. — orc] states the purport of 








the yoagai, so that to complete the sense a Aéyovea: or ypagovca: may be under- 
stood: * how shall the Scriptures be fulfilled which say that it must happen thus, 
and not otherwise? Jesus here alludes to the fact of His arrest, which, accord- 
ing to Scripture, is a necessary part of the destiny assigned Him ; comp. 
Acts iv. 28; Luke xxiv. 25 f. We must not expect to find what is here 
referred to in any passages of Scripture in particular ; suffice it to know, 
that al] the predictions relating to the sufferings of the Messiah find their 
necessary fulfilment in the historical events of our Lord’s life, the arrest it- 
self not exeluded. Comp. ver. 31.—The healing of the wounded servant is 
peculiar to Luke xxii. 51. It probably came to be engrafted upon the tra- 
dition at a later period ; for this act of healing, in virtue of the peculiarity 
of its alleged occasion and character, as well as in virtue of its being the 
last which Jesus performed, would otherwise scarcely have been omitted by 
all the other evangelists ; see also on Luke as above, 


1 On orlov, see Lobeck, ad Phryn. p. 211. 847. 
2 Lobeck, ad Phryn. p. 410 f. ; Stallbaum, 3 Fritzsche, Quaest. Luc. p. 58f.; Maetzner 
ad Plat. Apol. p. 17 D; Kuhner, II. 2, p. ad Antiph. p. 215. 


480 THE GOSPEL OF MATTHEW. 


Ver. 55. ‘Ep éxefvyn th Opa] in that hour, in which that was going on which 
is recorded between ver. 47 and the present passage, subsequently, however, 
to the scene with Peter, and while the arrest was taking place. Comp. 
xviii. 1, x. 19. —roi¢ dyAoue] not to the high priests, etc., as Luke xxii. 52 
would have us suppose. What is meant is the crowds of which the éyAo¢ 
modvc of ver. 47 was composed. 

Ver. 56. Tovto. . . tpodyrav] It is still Jesus who speaks, and who with 
these words closes His address. Comp. also Mark xiv. 19. In Luke xxii. 
53 we find a somewhat different conclusion given. Erasmus, Jansen, Ben- 
gel, Fritzsche, de Wette, Schegg, Bleek, Weiss, Holtzmann, Hilgenfeld, 
regard the words in question as aremark by the evangelist (comp. 1. 22, xxi. 4); 
but if that were so, we should have expected some specific quotation instead 
of such a general expression as ai ypagai tr. xp., and what is more, our Lord’s 
words would thus be deprived of their proper conclusion, of that which 
contains the very point of Hisremarks. For the gist of the whole matter lay 
in this avowal of His conviction as the God-man that all that was now taking 
place was a carrying out of the divine purpose with regard to the fulfilling of 
the Scriptures, and—thus the mystery of ver. 55 is solved. — rére oi pabyrai, 
k.t.2.] Observe the xdvtec. Not one of them stood his ground. Here was 
the verification of the words of Jesus, ver. 31 ; comp. John xvi. 82. 

Ver. 57 f. The Synoptists make no mention of the judicial examination 
before Annas (John xviii. 13); their narrative is for this reason incomplete, 
though it does not exclude such examination (Luke xxii. 66). As for the 
trial before the members of the Sanhedrim, which took place at the house 
of Caiaphas, John merely alludes to it, xviii. 24, where, however, aréorecdev 
is not to be taken as a pluperfect. —a7é paxpdbev] a well-known pleonasm : 
in later Greek the azé is dropped.’ Bengel appropriately observes : ‘‘ medius 
inter animositatem ver. 51 et timorem ver. 70,” ‘‘it was midway between the 
boldness of ver. 51 and the fear in ver. 70.” —ri¢ aiAqc] not the palace but 
the court, as in ver. 3. — elceAfiv iow] see Lobeck, ad Aj. 741 ; Paralip. p. 
538. —rd réAoc] exitum rei; 3 Macc. iii. 14, common in classical writers. 
Luther renders admirably : ‘‘ wo es hinaus wollte” (what the upshot would 
be). 

Ver. 59 f. Kai 7d cuvédprov bA0v] and the whole Sanhedrim generally. This 
is a legitimate enough use of the words, even although certain individual 
members (Nicodemus and Joseph of Arimathea) did not concur in this pro- 
ceeding. — pevdouaprrpiar] so called from the historian’s own point of view.” 
—broc Oavat. ait.| witha view to putting Hin to death, which could only be 
effected by their pronouncing in the first instance a capital sentence, and 
then having it ratified by the authority of the imperial procurator. — «ai 
ovy evpov Kal TOAAOY TpocEADdvTOY WPevdopnapTipwr (see the crit- 
ical remarks): and they found no means of doing so, even though many false wit- 
nesses had come forward. There were many who presented themselves to bear 
witness against Jesus ; yet the Sanhedrim did not jind what it wanted to 


1 Lobeck, ad Phryn. p. 93. WevSouaprtupiav, “as it seemed to them, wit- 
2 Huthymius Zigabenus well remarks: os ness, but as it was in truth, false witness.” 
piv éxetvots eddKet, mapTupiay, ws 5é TH GAnvela, 


CHAP. XXVI., 61-63. 481 


find, doubtless because of the lack of that agreement between two of the 
witnesses at least which the law required (Num. xxxy. 30; Deut. xvii. 6, 
xix. 15). See what immediately follows : tarepov dé rpoceAf. dio, and comp. 
Mark xiv. 56. Though there was a show of complying with the ordinary 
forms of judicial process, they were nevertheless shamefully violated (in - 
opposition to Salvador, Saalschutz), in that exculpatory evidence (John 
xviii. 20 f.) was never called for. 

Ver. 61. The expression John ii. 19, which Jesus had made use of with 
reference to His own body, was not only misunderstood by those witnesses, 
but also misrepresented (John : Atcate): whether wilfully or not, cannot be 
determined, But in any case the testimony was objectively false, and even in 
the case of the two who agreed it was in all probability subjectively so.’ — 
61a Tprov nuep.] not: after three days (Gal. ii. 1), but : during three days. 
The work of building was to extend over this short period, and would then 
be complete.? 

Ver. 62. With the sublime calm of one who is conscious of his own supe- 
rior worth, Jesus meekly abstains from uttering a single word before this 
contemptible tribunal in the way of self-vindication, eid&¢ dé Kai, dre pwaryv 
aroxplveitat Tapa Tovovroc, ‘‘moreover, knowing also that he would answer in 
vain before such as these,” Euthymius Zigabenus ; whereas the high priest 
who finds, and that with considerable gratification, that the charge of being 
a Messianic pretender is now fully substantiated by the language of Jesus 
just deponed to (see ver. 63), quite forgets himself, and breaks out into a 
passion. — The breaking up of the following utterence into two questions : 
answerest thou not? what (i.e. how heinous a matter) do these witness against 
thee? is, so far as the latter question is concerned, neither feeble (de Wette) 
nor unnatural (Weiss), but entirely in keeping with the passionate haste of 
the speaker. This being the case, the two clauses should not be run into 
one. We should neither, on the one hand, following Erasmus, with Fritzsche, 
take ri in the sense of cur, or (ad Mare. p. 650) the whole sentence as equiv- 
alent to ri tovré gor, 4 obTot cov katauaptupovow 3 nor, on the other, with the 
Vulgate, Luther, de Wette, Ewald, Bleek, Keim, Weiss, should we adopt 
the rendering : ‘‘nihil respondes ad ea, quae isti adversum te testificantur ?” 
This latter, however, would not be inconsistent with the strict meaning of 
the terms employed, for it is quite permissible to use doxpivecbai 7 in the 
sense of : to reply to anything (see Ast),* and to take ri as equivalent to 6,7 
(Buttmann),* who supposes ‘‘ hérend” (hearing) to be understood before 7). 

Ver. 63. The high priest answers this second refusal to speak by repeat- 
ing a formal oath, in which Jesus is adjured to declare whether He be the 
Messiah or not. For this confession would determine how far they would 
be justified in pronouncing a capital sentence, and such as the Roman pro- 
curator would not fail to confirm. — éfopxi{w] means, like the earlier form 
éfopxéw : I call upon thee to swear.’ To give an affirmative answer to this 


1 Comp. Acts vi. 13f. — 4 Neut. Gr. p. 216 [E. T. 251]. 
2 See on Gal. ff. 1. 5 Dem. 1265, 65; Polyb. ili. 61. 10, vi. 21. 1, 
3 Lex. Plat. I. p. 239. Xvi. 31.5. Comp. pawn, Gen. xxiv. 3, a. 


482 THE GOSPEL OF MATTHEW. 
formula was to take the full oath usually administered in any court of law.! 
The fact that Jesus took the oath has been denied, though without any 
reason whatever, by Wuttke, Déllinger, Steinmeyer. — karé rod Aeov, K.7.A. | 
by the living God.? Common in Greek authors.? The living God as such 
would not fail to punish the perjured, Heb. x. 31. It was the uniform prac- 
tice in courts of law to swear by God.* — 6 vidc rov beov] ordinary, recognized 
designation of the Messiah, into which, naturally enough, the metaphysical 
conception does not enter here, however much it may have been present to 
the mind of Christ Himself in making the affirmation which follows. 

Ver. 64. Xd elxac] see on ver. 25. Mark xiv. 62: éyé ew. A distin- 
guished confession on the part of the Son in presence of the Father, 
and before the highest tribunal of the theocratic nation. —7Aqv] not 
profecto (Olshausen), nor qwin (Kuinoel), but: however, i.e.,° apart 
from what I have just affirmed, ye shall henceforward have reason to 
be satisfied, from actual observation, that I am the Messiah who was seen 
by Daniel in his vision (Dan. vii. 13).—azdpr] is not to be taken with 
Aéyo buiv,® but—since in any other connection it would lose its foree—with 
dweofe ; nor is it to be understood in any other sense than that of henceforth, 
i.e., from the time of my impending death, through which I am to enter into 
my dé6£a. But seeing that ardpr: forbids us to understand éypecbe as denoting 
only a single momentary glance (comp. on the contrary, John i. 51), we are 
bound to suppose that Jesus used it somewhat loosely to express the idea of 
coming to perceive in the course of experience (as in the passage of John just re- 
ferred to) the fact of His being seated at the right hand of God (in allusion 
to Ps. ex. 1), and that He did not intend épydyevov, x.7.4., to refer to the 
second advent, but (Beza, Neander, Holtzmann, Schenkel, Gess, Weissen- 
bach) to a coming in the figurative sense of the word, namely, in the shape 
of those mighty influences which, from His place in heaven, He will shed upon 
the earth,—manifestations, all of them, of His sovereign sway. We are shut 
up to this view by the fact that the sitting cannot possibly be regarded as 
an object of actual sight, and that adapt: éweofe can only be said of some- 
thing that, beginning now, is continued henceforth. — rc duvau. | The Mighty 
One is conceived of as power (the abstract for the concrete.’ Such abstract 
terms (as for instance our: majesty) have somewhat of an imposing 
character. *® 

Ver. 65. As may be seen from 2 Kings xviii. 17, the rending of the gar- 
ments as an indication of unusual vexation was indulged in above all on 
hearing any utterance of a blasphemous nature.’ That part of the law 


1 Michaelis, Jos. R. § 302; Matthael, doctr, 
Christi de jurejur. 1847, p. 8; Keil, Arch. II. 
p. 256. 

2 Comp. 1 Kings iii. 24; Judithi 12. 

3 See Kiihner, I. 1, p. 434; also Heb. vi. 13, 
and Bleek thereon. 

4 See Saalschutz, IZ R. p. 614. 

5 Comp. Klotz, ad Devar. p. 725. 

6 Schulz in 3d ed. of Griesbach. 


7 Similarly in the Talmud W3330, Bux- 


torf, Lex. Talm. p. 385. 

5 Comp. 2 Pet. i. 17. 

® See Buxtorf, Lex. Talm. p. 2146; Schoett- 
gen, p. 234; Wetstein on our passage. 
Maimonides, quoted by Buxtorf as above, 
thus describes the usual mode of proceed- 
ing in such cases: ‘‘ Laceratio fit stando, a 
collo anterius, non posterius, non ad latus 
neque ad fimbrias inferiores vestis. Longi- 
tudo rapturae palmus est. Laceratio non _ 


CHAP: XXVI., 66; 67, 485 
which forbade the high priest to rend his garments (Lev. x. 6, xxi. 10) had 
reference merely to ordinary mourning for the dead.'— éGiacofuyce] in so 
far as by falsely pretending to be the Messiah, the Son of God, and by 
further arrogating to Himself participation in divine honor and authority, 
ver. 64, He had been guilty of insulting the majesty of God ; comp. John 
y. 18, x. 33. The pain of the high priest no doubt represented the genuine 
vexation of one who was most deeply moved ; but the judgment which he 
formed regarding Jesus was based upon the gratuitous assumption that He 
was not the Messiah, and indicates a predisposition to find Him guilty of 
the capital charge (Lev. xxiv. 16).? 

Ver. 66. At this point the high priest, notwithstanding the precipitancy 
with which the trial is being hurried through, and notwithstanding the 
candid confession just made by the accused, calls for a formal vote, the 
result of which is a verdict of guilty, and that of an offence deserving to be 
punished by death. The next thing that had to be considered was the 
course to be adopted with a view to the carrying out of the sentence. It was this 
that formed the subject of deliberation at that conclave to which reference 
is made at xxvii. 1. 

Ver. 67. Those to whom Matthew here refers are the members of the San- 
hedrim (as are also the tvvéc of Mark xiv. 65). Coarse outburst of passion 
on the verdict being announced. A somewhat different form of the tradi- 
tion is adopted by Luke (xxii. 63), who, moreover, represents the maltreat- 
ment here referred to as having taken place before the trial. The way in 
which harmonists have cut and carved upon the individual features of the 
narrative is altogether arbitrary. The account in John xviii. 22 has no con- 
nection with that now before us, but refers to an incident in the house of 
Annas, which the Synoptists have entirely omitted. — éixoAag.| buffetings, 
blows with the fist. — épparr.] slaps in the face with the palm of the hand.° 
It is in this sense that the word is uswally taken. But Beza, Bengél, Ewald, 
Bleek, Lange, maintain that it is a blow with a rod that is meant,® the sense 
in which the word is commonly used by Greek authors, and which ought 
to be preferred here, because oi dé (see on xxviii. 16) introduces the mention 
of a different kind of maltreatment, and because in Mark xiv. 65 the parifeev 


fit in Interula seu indusio linteo, nec in pal- 
lio exteriori: in reliquis vestibus corpori ac- 
commodatis omnibus fit, etiamsi decem fue- 
vint,” “The rending takes place while one 
is standing, from the neck before, not be- 
hind, not at the side nor the lower fringes 
of the garment. The breadth of the tearing 
isaspan. The rending does not take place 
in the tunic or linen under-garment, nor in 
the mantle outside : it takes place in all the 
rest of the garments fitted to the body, evenif 
there be ten.”” The last-mentioned particular 
may serve to account for the use of the 
plural ra iwarca (1 Mace. if. 14). 

1 Comp. 1 Mace. xi. 71; Joseph. Bed. ii. 
15. 4. 


2 For ri ére yp. €x. wapt., comp. Plat. Rep. 


p. 340 A. 
3 Meta yap Thy adixov Katadikny ws aTimov 
Twa Kai TpiwBoAcwatov AaBovTes, K.T.A., “for 


after the unjust sentence having seized 
him as a disgraced man and worthless 
(worth only three oboli),” ete., Euthymius 
Zigabenus. 

4 Comp. the Attic expression Kovdvdos. 

5 bamitpos 5& TO Trae KaTa TOU MpoTwToV, 
Euthymius Zigabenus ; comp. v. 39; Hos. 
xi. 5; Isa. 1.6; Dem. 787, 23; Aristot. Meteor. 
ii. 8.9; 3 Esdr. iv. 30; Lobeck, ad Phryn. p. 
176; Becker, Aneécd. p. 300. 

6 Herod. viii. 59; Anacr. vii. 2; Plut. Them. 
sie 


484 THE GOSPEL OF MATTHEW. 


is imputed to the officers of the Sanhedrim, which, however, would not 
warrant us in identifying with the latter the oi dé of Matthew. 

Ver. 68. Tpogfrevoov juiv] Differently in Mark xiv. 65. But so far as the 

xpooyt., tic éoTwv, x.7.A., is concerned, Luke xxii. 64 agrees with Matthew, 
although the favorite mode of accounting for this would seem to be that 
of tracing it to the obscuring influence of a later tradition ; in no case, 
however, is this theory to be applied to the exposition of Matthew, for it 
would involve a point of essential consequence. According to Matthew, the 
sport lay in the demand that Jesus as Messiah, and consequently as a prophet 
(xxi. 11), should tell who it was that had struck Him, though He had no 
natural means of knowing. This conduct, of course, proceeds on the 
assumption that the Messiah possessed that higher knowledge which is 
derived from divine revelation ; hence also the scoffing way in which they 
address Him by the title of Xporéc. Fritzsche thinks that the prominent 
idea here is that of foretelling, as being calculated, when thus conjoined 
with the preterite taicac, to form an acerba irrisio. But that would bemore 
likely to result in an absurda irrisio, unmarked by the slightest touch of 
humor. 
_ Ver. 69. “E&w] with reference to the interior of the particular building in 
which the trial of Jesus had been conducted. In ver. 58 écw is used be- 
cause in that instance Peter went from the street into the court-yard. — pia 
radickn| pia is here used in view of the GAay of ver. 71 below.* Both of 
them may have seen (76a, 7v) Peter among the followers of Jesus some- 
where in Jerusalem, and may have preserved a distinct recollection of his 
appearance. adicxy, in the sense of a female slave, corresponds exactly to 
our (German) Médchen.? —kai od jo6a, x.t.4.| categorical accusation, as in 
vy. 71, 73, and not a question (Klostermann). — tov TadcA.] which speciftc 
designation she may have heard applied to the Prisoner. The other slave 
(ver. 71) is still more specific, inasmuch as she calls Him 6 Nafapaioc. 

Ver. 70. "Eurpoobev rdvtwy (see the critical remarks) : before all who were 
present. — ovx olda ti Aéyerc| evasive denial: so little have I been with Him, 
that I am at a loss to know what is meant by this imputation of thine. 

Ver. 71. "E&e296vra] from the court-yard to the porch, which, passing through 
some part of the buildings that stood round the four sides of the former, 
conducted into the anterior court outside (xpoabiwv ; according to Mark 
xiv. 68, it was in this latter that the present denial took place).* In spite of 
the plain meaning of rvAev, door, doorway,* it is usually supposed that it is 
the outer court in front of the house, the xpoatdcov,® that is meant. — aitoic 
éxei] éxet belongs to Aéyec, while airoic, in accordance with a loose usage of 
frequent occurrence,° ismeant to refer to the people generally whom she hap- 
pened to meet with. It would be wrong to connect éxez with kai oiro¢ (Mat- 
thaei, Scholz), because in such a connection it would be meaningless. 

Ver. 72. Observe the climax in the terms of the threefold denial. — peff 


1 Comp. on viii. 19. xiv. 13; Rev. xxi. 
2 See Lobeck, ad Phryn. p. 239. >See Polly i. wv, ix. 16. 
3 Comp. Hermann, Privatalterth. § 19. 9 ff. 6 Winer, p. 187 f. [E. T. 181]. 


4See Luke xvi. 20; Acts x. 17, xii. 18 f., 


CHAP. XXVI., 73-75. 485 
épxov] is peculiar to Matthew, and is ere used in the sense of an oath. —rodv 
avipwrov] the man (in question). Alas, such is the language, cold and dis- 
tant, which Peter uses with reference to his Master! What a contrast to 
xvi. 16!" 

Ver. 73. The answer of Peter given at ver. 72, and in the course of which 
his Galilaean dialect was recognized, gave occasion to those standing by 
(that they were exactly Sanhedrim officers, apparitores, Kuinoel, Paulus, does 
not necessarily follow from the use of éorarec) to step up to Peter after a 
little while, and to corroborate (aA7#6c) the assertion of the maid-servant. 
—£ airy] of those who were along with Jesus, ver. 71. — kai yap] for even, 
apart from circumstances by which thou hast been already identified. — 7 
Aaka oov| thy speech (see on John viii. 43), namely, through the coarse pro- 
vincial accent. The natives of Galilee were unable to distinguish especially 
the gutturals properly, pronounced the letter w like a J, etc.” 

Ver. 74. Tére 7p£aro] for previously he had not resorted as yet to the xare- 
feuarifev, but had contented himself with the simple duvtew (ver. 72, pe? 
épxov). Whereas before he had only sworn, he now takes to cursing as well.® 
The imprecations were intended to fall upon himself (should he be found, 
that is, to be telling an untruth). For the word xarafewarifo, which was in 
all probability a vulgar corruption, comp. Rev. xxii. 3.*— orc] recitantis, as 
in ver. 72. — adéxrwp] a cock. There are Rabbinical statements (see the pas- 
sages in Wetstein) to the effect that it was not allowable to keep animals of 
this sort in Jerusalem ; but as there are other Rabbinical passages again 
which assert the opposite of this,° it is unnecessary to have recourse (Reland, 
Wolf) to the supposition that the bird in question may have belonged to a 
Gentile, may even have been about Pilate’s house, or some house outside the 
city. 

Ver. 75. ’Egead. 2&@] namely, from the porch (ver. 71) in which the second 
and third denial had taken place. Finding he could no longer repress the 
feeling of sorrowful penitence that filled his heart, the apostle must go out- 
side to be all alone with his remorse and shame. The fear of being detected 
(Chrysostom) had by this time undoubtedly become to him a very secondary 
consideration ; he was now himself again. — eipyxdro¢ ait] who had said to 
him (ver. 34), in itself a superfluous expression, and yet ‘‘ grande partici- 
pium,” ‘‘a noble participle,” Bengel. —xmxpac] he wept bitterly. How 
totally different was it with Judas!" 


1“ Fece, columna firmissima ad unius au- 
rae impulsum tota contremuit,” ‘‘Lo, a 
most firm column all trembling greatly at 
the impulse of a single voice,’ Augustine. 

2See Buxtorf, Zer. Talm. p. 485, 2417; 
Lightfoot, Centur. Chorogr. p. 151 ff.; Wet- 
stein on our passage ; Keim, I. p. 310. 

3**Nune gubernaculum animae plane 
amisit,” “now he plainly lost self-control,” 
Bengel. 

4 Tren. Haer.i. 13. 2, 16.3; Oecolampadius, 
ad Act. xxiii. 12. 


5 See Lightfoot, p. 483. 

® Comp. Isa, xxii. 4, and the passages in 
Wetstein. 

7“*Tacrymarum physica amaritudo 
(comp. Hom. Od. iv. 153) aut duleedo (comp. 
yAvxvdaxpus, Meleag. 45), congruit cum af- 
fectu. animi,” ‘“‘the natural bitterness 
of tears (comp. Hom. Qd. iv. 153), or their 
sweetness (comp. yAvevdaxpus, causing 
sweet tears, Meleag. 45) is in accord with 
mental emotion,’’ Bengel. 


486 THE GOSPEL OF MATTHEW. 


Remarz.—Seeing that the whole four evangelists concur in representing Peter 
as having denied Jesus three times, we are bound to regard the threefold repeti- 
tion of the denial as one of the essential features of the incident (in opposition 
to Paulus, who, in the discrepancies that occur in the various accounts, finds 
traces of no less than eight different denials). The information regarding this 
circumstance can only have been derived from Peter himself ; comp. also John 
xxi. 1 ff. As for the rest, however, it must be acknowledged—(1) that John 
(and Luke too, see on Luke xxii. 54 ff.) represents the three denials as having 
taken place in a different locality altogether, namely, in the court of the house 
in which Annas lived, and not in that of Caiaphas; while to try to account for 
this by supposing that those two persons occupied one and the same dwelling 
(Euthymius Zigabenus, Ebrard, Lange, Lichtenstein, Riggenbach, Pressensé, 
Steinmeyer, Keim), is a harmonistic expedient that is far from according with 
the clear view of the matter presented in the fourth Gospel ; see on John xviii. 
16, 25. (2) That the Synoptists agree neither with John nor with one another 
as to certain points of detail connected with the three different scenes in ques- 
tion, and more particularly with reference to the localities in which they are 
alleged to have taken place, and the persons by whom the apostle was interro- 
gated as to his connection with Jesus ; while to say, in attempting to dispose 
of this, that ‘‘Abnegatio ad plures plurium interrogationes facta uno parogx- 
ysmo, pro una numeratur” (Bengel), is to make a mere assertion, against which 
all the accounts of this incident without exception enter, so to speak, an em- 
phatic protest. (3) It is better, on the whole, to allow the discrepancies to 
remain just as they stand, and to look upon them as sufficiently accounted for 
by the diverse forms which the primitive tradition assumed in regard to details. 
This tradition has for its basis of fact the threefold denial, not merely a denial 
several times repeated, and, as Strauss alleges, reduced to the number three to 
agree with the prediction of Jesus. It is to the narrative of John, however, as 
being that of the only evangelist who was an eye-witness, that we ought to 
trust for the most correct representation of this matter. Olshausen, however, 
gives to the synoptic narratives with the one hand so much of the merit in this 
respect as he takes from the Johannine with the other, and thus lays himself 
open to the charge of arbitrarily confounding them all. 


CHAP. XXVII. 487 


CHAPTER XXVII. 


Ver. 2, avrév] after mapéd. has very important evidence both for and against it, 
being just as liable to be inserted as a very common supplement as to be omitted 
on account of its superfluous character, a character likely to be ascribed to it all 
the more that it is wanting alsoin Mark xv. 1. Deleted by Lachm. and Tisch. 8. 
— Tlovriw IlcA.] BL &, 33, 102, vss. Or. have simply TAdTw ; but the full form 
of the name is to be preferred all the more that the parallel passages have only 
IlcAar. — Ver. 3. mapadidovce] Lachm. : rapadovc, following only B L 33, 259, vss. 
(2). he aorist would more readily occur to the transcribers, since the betrayal 
had already taken place. — Ver. 4. a§gov] dixavov, although recommended by 
Griesb. and Schulz, has too little evidence in its favor, and should be regarded 
as an early exegetical correction with a view to render the expression more 
forcible ; comp. xxiii, 35. — der] Scholz, Lachm., Tisch. : dy, in accordance 
with decisive evidence. — Ver. 5. Instead of év 76 vam, Tisch. 8 has ei¢ tov vadp. 
Exegetical emendation, against which there is a preponderance of evidence. — 
Ver. 9. ‘Iepeuiov] The omission of the prophet’s name in 33, 157, Syr. Pers. and 
Codd. in Aug., as well as the reading Zayapiov in 22, Syr.P: in the margin, is 
due to the fact that the quotation is not found in Jeremiah. — Ver. 11. éor7]| 
BC L38, 1, 38, Or. : éora6n. So Lachm. and Tisch. 8. Exegetical emendation 
with a view to greater precision. — Vv. 16, 17. BapafPdv] Fritzsche: Incovpv 
BapaBGav. So Origeni™t- several min. Aram. Syr.J°r-, and early scholiasts. Advo-~ 
cated above all by Fritzsche in the Litt. Blatt z. allgem. Kirchenzeit. 1843, p. 538 f., 
in opposition to Lachm. ed. ma). p. xxxvii. f., with which latter critic Tisch. 
agrees. For my own part, I look upon the reading ’Ijoovv BapaB3dyv as the 
original one, for I am utterly at a loss to see how ’Ijcovv should have found its 
way into the text (in answer to Holtzmann, who supposes that it was from Acts 
iy. 36 through a blunder of the transcriber, and in answer to Tisch. 8, who with 
Tregelles traces it to an abbreviation of the name Inaoiv (IN), in which case it 
is supposed that YMININ came to be substituted for YMIN) ; and because to 
take away the sacred name from the robber would seem very natural and all the 
more justifiable that it is likewise omitted in vv. 20 f., 26, and by the other 
evangelists, not to mention that, from a similar feeling of reverence, it would 
seem to have been suppressed in the tradition current in the apostolic age. 
Comp. also Rinck, Lucubr. crit. p. 285, de Wette, Ewald, Bleek, Keim, Weiz 
sacker. The view that ’Ijcovv has been adopted from the Gospel of the Hebrews 
(Tisch.) is a very questionable inference from the statement of Jerome, that 
instead of BapaBZ. that Gospel had substituted filium magistri eorum. It would 
be just as warrantable to quote the same authority in favor of the originality of 
the reading ’Incotv BapaBB.— Ver, 22. ait (Elz., Scholz) after Aéyovo. has 
been deleted in accordance with preponderating evidence. — Ver, 24. The read- 
ing cavévav7s (Lachm.) is supported only by the insufficient evidence of B D; 
comp. xxi. 2. — Tov dixaiov rovtov] The words 70d dixaiov are wanting in B D 102, 
Cant. Ver. Vere. Mm. Chrys. Or.i2*: They are placed after rovrov in A, while A 


488 THE GOSPEL OF MATTHEW. 


reads rov rovrov dixaiov. Lachm. inserts them after rovrov, but in brackets ; 
Tisch. deletes them, and that correctly. They are to be regarded as a gloss 
(suggested by the reading dixaiov, ver. 4), written on the margin at first, and 
afterwards, when incorporated in the text, conjoined in some instances with 
tod aiuatoc (as in ver. 4) and in others with rovrov ; hence so many different 
ways of arranging the words. — Ver. 28. éxdvcavtec] B D &** 157, Cant. Ver. 
Verc. Colb. Corb. 2, Lachm. ; évdticavrec. Correctly ; évdic. was not understood» 
and was accordingly altered.! Comp. on 2 Cor. v. 3. In what follows we should, 
with Lachm, and Tisch., restore the arrangement yAau. Kokk, wepéO. avTo, in 
accordance with important evidence, — Ver. 29. éri r7v defidv] As the reading 
év tH deEid (approved by Griesb., adopted by Fritzsche, Lachm., Tisch.) has 
such important evidence as that of AB D L N 8, min. vss. Fathers in its favor, 
and the one in the Received text might so easily originate in a mechanical con- 
forming with ém r7v xed. (for which Tisch., in opposition to a preponderance 
of ms, evidence, substitutes éxi r7¢ Kedadjc), we cannot but regard év rH deiia as 
having the best claim to originality. — Ver. 33. Elz. has 6¢ gor Avyéuevoc xpaviov 
téxoc. So also Scholz. There is a multiplicity of readings here, Fritzsche, Rinck 
(comp. also Griesb.) have simply 6 éore xpaviov réroc, while Lachm. and Tisch. 
read 6 éorw Kpaviov ténoc Aeyouevoc. The balance of evidence is decidedly in 
favor of regarding the neuter 4 as genuine ; it was changed to the masculine to 
suit térov and téroc. Further, Aeyduevoc is wanting only in D, min. Copt. Sahid. 
Arm. Vulg. It., where its omission may probably have been resorted to as a 
means of getting rid of a difficult construction, while the readings Aeyduevor, 
pefepunvevduevoc, weOepunvevouevov (Mark xv. 22), xatovuevov (Luke xxiii. 33), are 
also to be regarded as exegetical variations. We ought therefore to retain the 
Aeyouevoc, and in the order in which it is taken by Lachm. and Tisch., on the 
authority of B L 8, min. Ath. Its earlier position in Elz. is probably due to 
éort Aeyou. (comp. gore pwefepu., Mark xv. 22) being sometimes taken together. — 
Ver. 34. d£0c] Lachm. and Tisch. 8: oivov, which is supported by evidence so 
important, viz. B D K LII* 8, min. vss. and Fathers, that we must regard 6é0¢ 
as derived from Ps. lxviii. 22. The word oivoy was allowed to remain in Mark 
xy. 23 because the gall did not happen to be mentioned there ; and this being 
the case, the alteration, in conformity with Ps. Ixviii. as above, would not so 
readily suggest itself. — Ver. 35. After «Ajpov Elz. inserts: iva rAnpwhg 70 pnbév 
id Tov Tpoontou’ Acewepioarto Ta iudrid pov éavroic, Kai én? TOv luatiopdv ov EAaBov 
KAjpov. Against decisive evidence ; supplement from John xix. 24, — Ver. 40. 
xatdé3n0] Lachm, and Tisch. 8: xai caraB., following A D 8, min. Syr.jer- Cant. 
Ver, Vere. Colp. Clar. Cyr. The xai has been added for the purpose of connect- 
ing the two clauses together. — Ver. 41. After rpeoButépwv, Matth., Fritzsche 
insert Kai @apicaiwv, for which there is important though not preponderant evi- 
dence. Those chief adversaries of Jesus were by way of gloss mentioned on the 
margin, but subsequently the words crept into the text, being sometimes found 
along with, and sometimes substituted for, mpecButépwv (as in D, min. Cant. Ver. 
Vere. Colb. Clar. Corb. 2, Gat. Cassiod.).— Ver. 42. ei BaoA.] Fritzsche and 
Tisch. read simply Baov4., following B D L 8, 33, 102, Sahid. Correctly ; ¢ is 
a supplementary addition from ver. 40, its insertion in D, min. vss. Eus. before 


1 Lachm. adopts the reading évdvcavtes in _ error of early date. See his Praef. ed. maj. 
accordance with his fundamental principles IDE Foy, (65 
of criticism, still he looks upon it as an 


CHAP. XXVII., 1, 2. 489 


wéxofev below being likewise traceable to the same source. — rioretaouer] 
Lachm. : xiorevouev, only in accordance with A, Vulg. Ver. Vere. Colb. Or.in*, 
but correctly notwithstanding. By way of gloss the present was replaced some- 
times by the future (Hlz.) and sometimes by the subjunctive morevowuev. Tisch, 
§ adopts the latter. — én’ air@] The witnesses are divided between aira (Elz., 
Lachm.), éx’ air» (Griesb., Tisch. 7), and én’ airév (Fritzsche, Tisch. 8). The 
reading éx’ aitg (EH FG HK MSU VA UL, min.) should be preferred, inasmuch 
as this expression not only occurs nowhere else in Matthew, but is a somewhat 
rare one generally. — Ver. 44. For avrév, Elz. has air, against decisive ms. 
authority. Emendation in conformity with the construction déveiditew trwi t.. 
— Ver. 46. The mss. present very considerable variety as regards the spelling 
of the Hebrew words. Lachm. : ’HAi 7A? Anua caBaxbavi. Tisch. 8: ‘Hie ‘Hie 
Ama capaxbavi. The latter is the best attested. — Ver. 49. doc dé AaBav Aoyxny 
&vusev adtod tiv wAevpay, Kai ESPADev Ddwp kat aiua, supported though it be by B 
C LUT ®, min. vss. Chrys., is clearly an irrelevant interpolation (after av76v) 
borrowed from John xix, 34. Yet this interpolation occasioned the error con- 
demned by Clem. v. 1311, that Christ’s side was pierced before He expired. — 
Ver. 52. 7yép97] BD GL &, min. Or. Eus. : 7yép8y70av. So Fritzsche, Lachm., 
Tisch. But how readily would the whole surroundings of the passage suggest 
the plural to the mechanical transcribers !— Ver. 54. yevoueva] Lachm. and 
Tisch.: yivoueva, following B D, min. Vulg. It. Or. (who, however, has yevomeva 
as well). The aorist might have originated as readily in a failure to appreciate 
the difference of meaning as in a comparison of the present passage with Luke 
xxiii. 47 f. — Ver. 56. For ’Iwog, Tisch. 8 has Iwo7¢, following D* L38, vss. 
Or. Kus. Emendation suggested by the assumption that the mother of Jesus 
must have been intended (comp. on xiii. 55); hence &* enumerates the three 
Marys thus : Map. 7 tov "laxéBov nai 7 Map. } "Iwond cai 7 Map, 7 tov vidv Ze3. — 
Ver. 57. guaptevoe] Lachm. and Tisch. 8: éuafnredOn, following C D 8 and two 
min. Altered in accordance with xiii. 52, — Ver. 64. Elz. inserts vixroc after 
airov, against decisive evidence ; borrowed’ from xxviii. 13. The dé again, 
which Elz. has after é¢7, ver. 65, is an interpolation for sake of connection, and 
is wanting in very important witnesses (not, however, in A C D &). 


Ver. 1. By the time the Sanhedrim met, as it now did, in full sederunt 
(ravrec, comp. xxvi. 59), for the purpose of consulting as to how they were 
now to give effect to the verdict of xxvi. 66, it was well on in the morning 
(after cock-crowing, xxvi. 74). — éore] they consulted before going further 
(comp. on xxii. 15) as to what the consequence might be (comp. on xxiv. 
24) if they carried out their intention of putting Him to death, in other 
words, if they were likewise to give effect to the verdict already agreed 
upon : évoyoc Pavdrov éori. 

Ver. 2. Agoavtec] The shackles which had been put upon Jesus at the 
time of His arrest (xxvi. 50, comp. with John xviii. 12), and which He still 
wore when He was led away from Annas to Caiaphas (John xviii. 24), 
would seem, from what is here stated, to have been either wholly or 
partially removed during the trial. With the view of His being securely 
conducted to the residence of the procurator, they take the precaution 
to put their prisoner in chains again. It is not. expressly affirmed, either 
by Matthew or Mark, that the dr#yayov was the work of the members 


490 THE GOSPEL OF MATTHEW. 

of the Sanhedrim in pleno (as generally supposed, Weiss and Keim also 
sharing in the opinion); and, indeed, it is scarcely probable that they 
would have so far incurred the risk of a popular tumult (comp. xxvi. 5). 
The statement in Luke xxiii. 1 is unquestionably the product of a later tradi- 
tion. As for Matthew and Mark, they seem to assume that merely a depu- 
tation accompanied the prisoner, though doubtless it would be large enough 
to be in keeping with the importance of the occasion.’—apédwxav avtov 
Hovriw, k.7.2.] For after Judaea became a Roman province (from the time 
that King Archelaus was dethroned, 759 v.c.), the Sanhedrim had lost the 
- gus gladii.2 On Pontius Pilate, the fifth procurator of Judaea, who was suc- 
cessor to Valerius Gratis, and who, after holding office for ten years (from 
A.D. 26 onwards), was summoned to Rome at the instance of Vitellius, then 
governor of Syria, to answer to certain charges made against him, and 
then (according to Euseb. ii. 7) banished to Vienne, where he is said 
to have committed suicide, see Ewald,’ Leyrer,* Gerlach,® Hausrath.° 
For certain Christian legends regarding His death, consult Tischendorf.’ 
Caesarea was the place where the procurators usually resided (Acts xxii. 
23 f., xxiv. 27, xxv. 1) ; but, as it was the Passover season, Pilate was in 
* Jerusalem (to be ready, in fact, to quell any disturbance that might arise, 
comp. on xxvi. 5), where he lived in the praetorium (see on ver. 27). —7@ 
jyeudve] principi. The more precise designation would have been 1@ éxitpér, 
procuratori.2 On the comprehensive sense in which #yeuov is frequently 
used, see Krebs, Obss. p. 61 ff. ; 

Ver. 3. Tére] as Jesus was being led away to the procurator. From this 
Judas saw that his Master had been condemned (xxvi. 66), for otherwise 
He would not have been thus taken before Pilate. —é rapadiov¢ aitév| His 
betrayer, XXvi. 25, 48. —perapeAnSeic, x.t.A.] cannot be said to favor the 
view that Judas was animated by a good intention (see on xxvi. 16, Re- 
mark 2), though it no doubt serves to show he neither contemplated nor 
expected so serious a result. It is possible that, looking to the innocence of 
Jesus, and remembering how often before He had succeeded in disarming 
His enemies, the traitor may have cherished the hope that the issue would 
prove harmless.° Such was his repentance, but it was not of a godly nature 
(2 Cor. vii. 9 f.), for it led to despair. —aréotpee] he returned them (XxXvl. 
52),”° ie., he took them back (Gen. xlili. 21 ; Judg. xi. 13 ; Jer. xxviii. 3), 
Heb. WN. —roic apy. x. t. mpeo3.] from which it is to be inferred that 
Matthew did not look upon this as a full meeting of the Sanhedrim (ver. 2). 

Ver. 4. “Huaptov rapadobe] see on xxvi. 12. —aiua adgov] cic Td yvd7jvar, 
Euthymius Zigabenus.” — ré mpc juac] sc. ore; what is it as regards us ? TS 


1 Comp. also on ver. 3. 5€ 6 THs "lovdaias nyenav. 


2 Comp. on John xviii. 31. 
3 Gesch. Chr. p. 87 ff. 
4 Jn Herzog’s Hncykl. XI. p. 663 ff. 
5D, Rim. Statthalter in Syr. u. Jud. p. 
53 ff. ‘ 
® Zeitgesch. I. p. 312 ff. 
7 Evang. Apocr. p. 426 ff. 
8 Comp. Joseph. Antt. xviii. 3. 1: IeAatos 


® Now : “‘vellet, si posset, factum infec- 
tum reddere,” ‘‘He would, if he could, 
undo what was done,” Bengel. 

10 Thue. v. 75, Vili. 108; Ken. Anabd. ii. 6. 
8, al. 

11 Comp. Deut. xxvii. 25; 1 Mace. i. 87; 2. 
Mace. i. 8; Phalar. ep. 40 ; Heliod. viii. 10. 


CHAP. XXVII.,. 5. 491 


what matters it to us? we are in no way called upon to concern ourselves 
about what thou hast done. Comp. John xxi. 22 f. ; the words are also 
frequently used in this sense by Greek authors. — od dyn] Thou wilt see to it 
thyself, thou wilt have to consider for thyself what is now tobe done by 
thee.’ 

Ver. 5. Ev r6 vag] is to be taken neither in the sense of near the temple 
(Kypke), nor as referring to the room, Gasith, in which the Sanhedrim held 
its sittings (Grotius), nor as equivalent to év 7@ lep (Fritzsche, Olshausen, 
Bleek) ; but, in accordance with the regular use of vaéc (see on iv. 5) and 
the only possible meaning of év, we must interpret thus : he flung down 
the money in the temple proper, i.e., in the holy place where the priests were 
to be found. Judas in his despair had ventured within that place which 
none but priests were permitted to enter. — arjyfato| he strangled himself.’ 
There isno reason why the statement in Acts i. 18 should compel us to take 
axayyoua as denoting, in a figurative sense, an awakening of the conscience 
(Grotius, Perizonius, Hammond, Heinsius), for although dyyevv is sometimes 
so used by classical authors,? such a meaning would be. inadmissible 
here, where we have no qualifying term, and where the style is that of a 
plain Aistorical narrative.‘ With a view to reconcile what is here said 
with Acts i. 18, it is wswal to assume that the traitor jirst hanged himself, 
and then fell down headlong, Matthew being supposed to furnish the first, 
and Luke the second half of the statement (Kuinoel, Fritzsche, Olshausen, 
Kaeuffer, Paulus, Ebrard, Baumgarten-Crusius). But such a way of par- 
celling out this statement, besides being arbitrary in itself, is quite inad- 
missible, all the more so that it is by no means clear from Acts i. 18 that 
suicide had been committed. Now as suicide was regarded by the Jews 
with the utmost abhorrence, it would for that very reason have occupied a 
prominent place in the narrative instead of being passed over in silence. It 
has been attempted to account for the absence of any express mention of 
suicide, by supposing that the historian assumed his readers to be familiar with 
the fact. But if one thing forbids such an explanation more than another, it 
is the highly rhetorical character of the passage in the Acts just referred to, 
which, rhetorical though it be, records, for example, the circumstance of 
the purchase of the field with all the historical fidelity of Matthew himself, 
the only difference being that Luke’s mode of representing the matter is 
almost poetical in its character (in opposition to Strauss, Zeller, de Wette, 
Ewald, Bleek, Pressens¢é, Paret, Keim, all of whom concur with Paulus in 
assuming, in opposition to Matthew, that Judas bought the field himself).° 
In Matt xxvii. 5 and Acts i. 18, we have two different accounts of the fate of 
the betrayer, from which nothing further is to be gathered by way of his- 
torical fact than that he came to a violent end. In the course of subsequent 


1 Comp. ver. 24; Acts xviii. 15; 1Sam. xxv. Cyrop. iii. 1.14; Hier. vii. 13; Aesch. Suppl. 
17; 4 Mace. ix. 1. ‘“‘Impii in facto consor- 400 ; Ael. V. HZ. v. 3. 


tes, post factum deserunt,” ‘‘ The ungodly, 3 Dem. 406, 5; and see the expositors, ad 
who share in acrime with others, desert Thom. Mag. p. 8. 
them after the deed,’ Bengel. 4 Comp. 2 Sam. xvii. 23 ; Tob. iii. 10. 


2 Hom. Od. xix. 230; Herod. vii. 282; Xen. 5 Comp. on Acts i. 18. 


492 THE GOSPEL OF MATTHEW. 

tradition, however, this violent death came to be represented sometimes as 
suicide by means of hanging,’ at a later stage again as a fall resulting in the 
bursting of the bowels, or at a later period still as the consequence of his 
having been crushed by a carriage when the body was in a fearfully swollen 
condition.” There is no other way of accounting for so many diverse tradi- 
tions regarding this matter, but by supposing that nothing was known as 
to how the death actually took place. Be this as it may, we cannot enter- 
tain the view that Judas sunk into obscurity, and so disappeared from history, 
but that meanwhile the Christian legends regarding him were elaborated 
out of certain predictions and typical characters * found in Scripture (in 
such passages as Ps. cix. 8, lxix. 25); such a view being inadmissible, 
because it takes no account of what is common to all the New Testament 
accounts, the fact, namely, that Judas died a violent death, and that very 
soon after the betrayal ; and further, because the supposed predictions (Ps. 
Ixix., cix., xx.) and typical characters‘ did not help to create such stories 
regarding the traitor’s death, but it would be nearer the truth to say that 
they were subsequently taken advantage of by critics to account for the 
stories after they had originated. . 

Ver. 6. Ov« é£eore] ‘‘argumento ducto ex Deut. xxiii. 18, Sanhedr. f. 
112,” Wetstein. — riuq aiparoc| the price of blood, which is supposed to have 
been shed. — kop.] rov lepdv Snoavpdv, xaAdeirac dé xopBavac, Josephus, Bell. ii. 
9. 4. 

Ver. 7 f. "Hyépacav] It is not said that they did so immediately ; but the 
purchase took place shortly after, according to Acts i. 18. — rov aypov rob 
xepau.| the field of the potter, the field which had previously belonged to 
some well-known potter. Whether the latter had used the field for the 
purpose of digging clay, it is impossible to determine. — éic¢ ragyy r. Eévorc] 
as a burying-place for the strangers, namely, such foreign Jews (proselytes 
included) as happened to die when on a visit to Jerusalem ; not (Gentiles 
(Paulus), who, had they been intended, would have been indicated more 
specifically. — 6:6] because it had been bought with the riu7 aipzatoc above 
(ver. 6). —dypo¢ aipartocg| X24 pn, Acts i. 18, where, however, the name 
is traced to a different origin. On the place which in accordance with tra- 
dition is still pointed out as the field here referred to, see Robinson, II. p. 
178 ff. ; Tobler, Topogr. 

Ver. 9 f. Tére] when they bought this field for the thirty pieces of money. 
—The passage here quoted is a very free adaptation of Zech, xi. 12, 13,° 


1 Matthew, Ignatius, ad Philipp. interpol. 4. 

2 Papias as quoted by Oecumenius, ad 
Act. l.c., and by Apollinaris in Routh’s 
reiquiae sacr. p. 9, 23 ff. ; also in Cramer’s 
Catena, p. 231; Overbeck in Hilgenfeld’s 
Zeitschr, 1867, p. 39 ff.; Anger, Synops. 
p. 233. 

* Strauss, Keim, Scholten. 

* Such as Ahithophel, 2 Sam. xv. 30 ff., 
XvVii. 23; Antiochus, 2 Macc. ix. 5 ff. 

°Tf the evangelist had meant to combine 


two different predictions (Hofmann, Weis- 
sag. u. Erf. Wl. p. 128 f.; Haupt, adétest. 
Citate, p. 286 ff.), then, according to the 
analogy of ii. 23, we should have expected 
the words Sa tav mpodytoy to be used. 
But, in short, our quotation belongs so 
exclusively to Zechariah, that candor 
forbids the idea of a combination with 
Jer. xviii., as well as the view adopted 
by Hengstenberg (comp. Grotius), that 
Zechariah reproduces the prediction of 


CHAP, XXVII., 0: 493 
‘Tepeuiov being simply a slip of the memory,’ such, however, as might readily 
enough occur through a reminiscence of Jer, xviii. 2. Considering that in 
the original Hebrew the resemblance of this latter passage to Zechariah, as 
above, is sufficiently close to warrant the typical mode of interpretation,? it 
is arbitrary to maintain, in the somewhat uncritical fashion of Rupert, Lyra, 
Maldonatus, Jansen, Clericus, Friedlieb, that ‘Iepexiov is spurious ; or, on 
the other hand, to resort, as Origen, Euthymius Zigabenus, Kuinoel, Ewald 
have done, to the idea of some lost production of Jeremiah’s, or of some oral 
utterance that had never been committed to writing (see, above all, Calo- 
vius, who in support of this view lays great stress on pyfév). As for the 
statement of Jerome, that he had seen the passage in a copy of Jeremiah be- 
longing to some person at Nazareth, there can be no doubt that what he saw 
was an interpolation, for he also is one of those who ascribe the citation in 
question to Zechariah. No less arbitrary is the conjecture of Eusebius, Dem. 
ev. x. 4, that the Jews may have deleted the passage from Jeremiah ; for 
though it reappears again in a certain Arabic work,*® and in a Sahidic and a 
Coptic lectionary,* it does so simply as an interpolation from our present 
passage.°—According to the historical sense of Zechariah, as above, the 
prophet, acting in Jehovah’s name, resigns his office of shepherd over 
Ephraim to Ephraim’s own ruin ; and having requested his wages, consist- 
ing of 30 shekels of silver, to be paid him, he casts the money, as being God’s 
property, into the treasury of the temple. ‘‘ And they weighed for my wages 
thirty pieces of silver. Then Jehovah said to me : Cast it into the treasury, 
that handsome (ironically) sum of which they have thought me worthy ! 
So I took the thirty pieces of silver, and cast them into the treasury that was 
in God’s house,” Ewald, Proph.° For we ought to read ayPa-oN, into the 
treasury (equivalent, as Kimchi explains, to T3181 OX, and as is actually 
the reading of two mss. in Kennicott), and not syra-5x, to the potter, as 
Matthew, in fact, also read and understood the words, though such a mean- 
ing is entirely foreign to the context in Zechariah.*"| The expositors of 
Zechariah, who take W¥1-in the sense of potter, have had recourse to 
many an unfounded and sometimes singular hypothesis.*°— éAafov] in 
Zechariah and LXX. is the jirst person singular, here it is the third person 
plural. The liberty thus used with the terms of the quotation may be 
supposed to be warranted by the concluding words: xafa cuvéragé joe 6 
Neither the original Hebrew nor the LXX. countenances the sup- 
position that the evangelist erroneously took /aBov to be third person 


KbpLoc. 


Jeremiah. For a detailed enumeration of 4 See Michaelis, Bibl. IV. p. 208 ff. ; Brief- 


the various attempts that have been made 
to deal with the inaccurate use of ‘Iepepiov, 
eonsult Morison, who follows Clericus in 
holding that there must have been a tran- 
seriber’s error in the very earliest copy of our 
Gospel. 

1 Comp. Augustine, de cons. ev. iii. 8, and 
recently Keil himself, following Calvin and 
the Fathers. 

2 Credner, Beit. II. p. 152 f. 

3 Bengel, Appar. crit. p. 142. 


wechs. III. pp. 68, 89; Hinleit. I. p. 264. 

5 See Paulus, exeget. Handb. II. p. 615 ff. 

§ Bleek in the Stud. u. rit. 1852, p. 
279 ff. 

7 Comp. Hitzig, kl. Proph. p. 374. 

8 For specimens of these, see also Heng- 
stenberg’s Christol. III. 1, p. 457 ff. ; Hof- 
mann, Weissag. vu. H7f il. p. 128 f.: Lange, 
L. J. Il. p. 1494 f.; Steinmeyer, p. 105 f.; 
Haupt, alttest. Citate, p. 272 ff. 


494 THE GOSPEL: OF MATTHEW. 


plural, like édoxay immediately following (in opposition to Hilgenfeld)- 
—ra tplakovra apyip.] Meaning, according to the typical reference in 
Matthew, the thirty shekels brought back by Judas. — tiv tity, x.t.A.] In 
apposition with ra tpidk. apy. The words correspond more with the Hebrew: 
than withthe LXX., though in this instance too a slight liberty is taken with 
them, inasmuch as for "J1)p" WS we have once more (comp. on éAafov) the 
third person plural év ériuAcavro, and for om oyn the explanatory rendering 
ard viov Iopafa. The passage then is to be rendered as follows : And they 
took the thirty pieces of siluer—the value of the highly valued One, on whom they 
put their own price (middle, ériyuhcavto) at the instance of sons of Israel, i.e., the 
price of the priceless One, whose market value they fixed for themselves upon an 
secasion furnished by sons of Israel. The expression vidv "Iopaga is the plural 
of category (ii. 20), and is regarded as finding its historical antitype in 
Judas, who, xxvi. 14 f., undertakes and carries through the shameful trans- 
action there referred to,—he a son of Israel negotiates the sale of the 
Messiah of the people of Israel. In addition to what has just been observed, 
we would direct attention to the following details :— (1) roi retcunévov is in- 
tended to represent the Hebrew word 17 (pretii) ; but the evangelist has 
evidently read 1P° (cari, aestwmati), which he refers to Jesus as being the 
highly,valued One car’ é£oy#v ; nor must we fail to notice here the remarkable 
collocation : pretium pretiosi, 1.€., tiv aviv tov tavtizov Xprorod, ‘‘ the price of 
the precious One, that is, the purchase-money of the ever honorable Christ,” 
Euthymius Zigabenus.* That distinguished personage, whose worth as such 
cannot in fact be estimated by any mere money standard (riu4), they have act- 
ually valued (ériuf4cavro) at thirty shekels ! To take the rod reriuy. merely in 
the sense of dy ériuga. (of the valued one, him whom they have valued), as the 
majority of expositors do (including even yet de Wette, Lange, and Hof- 
mann,” instead of expressing the idea in a more forcible manner, would 
simply produce, especially after r. ryw4r, atautological redundancy. (2) The 
subject of ériufoayro is the same as that of éAaBov, namely, the high priest ; 
nor is the verb to be taken in the sense of estimating highly, as in the case of 
reriunu., but in that of valuing, putting a price upon, the sense in which it is 
used in Isa. lv. 2, and very frequently by classical writers, and in which the 
Hebrew ‘1p? is intended to be understood. (8) ard viey "Iop., which is a 
more definite rendering of the DM} of the original, must necessarily be 
connected, like its corresponding Hebrew expression, with ériufoavro, and 
not with %aZov (Fritzsche, Hilgenfeld), nor with rod retywyu. (which de 
Wette considers possible), and be understood as denoting origin, 7.¢., as 
denoting, in our present passage, the occasion brought about by some ‘one 
(comp. also Bleek) in connection with which the ériufoavto took place.* 
They were indebted to the sons of Israel (Judas, see above) for that which 
suggested and led tothe éryufoavto. We cannot approve of the course which 


1 Comp. Theophylact, also Ewald. that which furnishes occasion or opportu- 

2 Weissag. u. rf. I. p. 130. nity, that something can be done,”’ Stall- 

3 aré de eo ponitur, quod praebet occa- baum, ad Plat. Rep. p. 549 A; comp. Kih- 
sionem vel opportunitatem, ut aliquid fieri ner, II. 1, p. 396; similarly xi. 19; see also 
possit,”? ‘“‘amé (from) is used concerning Ellendt, Lew, Soph, I, p. 194. 


CHAPY X RVI 9. 495 


some adopt of supplying rvvéc¢ : equivalent to oi Iopandira: (Euthymius Ziga- 
benus), or ‘‘ qué sunt ex filiis Israel” (Beza, Grotius, Maldonatus, Paulus, 
Kuinoel, Ewald, de Wette, Grimm, Anger), thus making a7d vid ‘Iop. the 
subject of ériuqo. In that case, the ordinary éx! would have been used (as 
in xxiii. 34; John xvi. 17, a/.), and instead of vidéy we should have had ra» 
viav, inasmuch as the whole community would be intended to which the 
rwvéc are supposed to belong. Comp. also 1 Mace. vii. 33, 3 Mace. 1. 8, 
where, though azé is the preposition used, the article is conjoined with the 
substantive following. The absence of the article here is likewise unfavor- 
able to the views of Hofmann,” who, taking azé to mean on the part of, in- 
terprets thus : ‘‘ What Caiaphas and Judas did (ériujoavro), was done in- 
directly by the whole nation.” To explain a7é as others have done, by assum- 
ing the idea of purchase in connection with it,* is not only arbitrary, inas- 
much as the idea involved in érew#oavro does not justify the supposed preg- 
nant force of a6,‘ but is incompatible with the 5y0 of the original. No 
less inconsistent with the original is the explanation of Baumgarten-Crusius: 
‘‘whom they had valued from among the children of Israel,” that is to say, 
‘“which they had fixed as the price of one of the children of Israel.” In 
that case, again, we should have required the article along with viav ; and, 
besides, what a poor designation of the Messiah would be the result of such 
an interpretation ! With an equal disregard of the terms of the passage, 
Linder maintains,° that axé is equivalent to twa é« : as an Israelite (whom 
they treated like a slave) ; and to the same effect is the explanation of Stein- 
meyer, p. 107 : whom they have valued in the name of the nation. Neither 
the simple azé nor the anarthrous vidy ‘Iop. admits of being so understood, 
although Hilgenfeld is also of opinion that our passage meant to describe the 
betrayal as an act for which the whole body of the Jewish people was to be held ve- 
sponsible. Ver. 10. Kat édwxav ara eic¢ tov aypdv tov Kepapu.| Zech., as above, 
oxvn ON Mmm 2 INN PWN, But, inasmuch as the important matter 
here was the purchase of the potter’s field, Matthew leaves 77 42 entirely 
out of view, takes 1¥1 in the sense of potter (see, on the other hand, on ver. 
9 above), and, in order that 1¥1°0 ON may fully harmonize with atypical and 
prophetic view of the passage, he paraphrases the words thus : eic¢ rdv aypov 
Tov Kepauéwc, where eic is intended to express the destined object of the thing : 
for the purpose of acquiring the field belonging to the potter. — ala cvvéracé 
ot Kbpto¢] Corresponds to Zechariah’s ON Mm WN, ver. 13, the words 
employed by the prophet when he asserts that in casting the shekels into the 
treasury of the temple he did so in obedience to the command of God. In 
accordance with the typical reference ascribed to the passage by Matthew, 
the words ‘‘ according to that which the Lord commanded me” are so applied as 
to express the idea that the using of the traitor’s reward for the purpose of 
buying the potter’s field was simply giving effect to the decree of Him from 


1Comp. Buttmann, Weut. Gr.p.138[E.T. they purchased from the Israelites,” comp. 


158]. Erasmus, Luther, Vatablus, Jansen, Lange. 
2 Weissag. u. Erf. 1. p. 131. 4 Buttmann, p. 276 [E. T. 322]. 
3 Castalio: ‘‘quem licitati emerunt ab 5 In the Stud. u. Krit. 1859, p. 513. 


Israelitis,” ‘“‘ Which, having offered a price, 


496 THE GOSPEL OF MATTHEW. 

whom the prophet had received the command in question. That which God 
had commissioned the prophet (wor) to do with the thirty pieces of silver is 
done in the antitypical fulfilment of the prophecy by the high priests, who 
thus carry out the divine decree above referred to.’ Itis quite possible that 
the words used in the Hebrew original of Matthew were 133 W823 or W823 
mM, which in the LXX. are likewise rendered by kaa ovvérage, Ex. ix. 
12, xl. 25 ; Num. viii. 3. 

Ver. 11 f. Continuation, after the episode in vv. 3-10, of the narrative 
introduced at ver. 2. The accusation preferred by the Jews, though not 
expressly mentioned, may readily be inferred from the procurator’s question. 
See Luke xxiii. 2, In appearing before Pilate, they craftily give promi- 
nence to the political aspect of the Messianic pretensions of, Jesus. — ov 2éyexc] 
There is nothing ambiguous in such a reply (which was not so framed that 
it might be taken either as an affirmative or as equivalent to éyo pév rovTo ov 
héyw, ov 62 Aéyetc, Theophylact), but such a decided affirmative as the terms of 
the question: Art thou, etc., were calculated to elicit, John xviii. 37. 
Comp. xxvi. 64. — oidév arexp.] Comp. on xxvi. 62. The calm and digni- 
fied silence of the true king. 

Ver. 14. Tpdc obdé &v pjya] intensifying the force of the expression : to 
not even a single word, i.e., to not even a single inquisitorial interrogative. 
The silence mentioned in vy. 12, 14 comes in after the examination reported 
in John xviii. 37. — Gore favudfev] convinced as he was of the innocence of 
Jesus, he was all the more at a loss to understand the forbearance with 
which He maintained such sublime silence. 

Ver. 15. Kara éoprhy] on the occasion of the feast, i.e., during the feast-time ; * 
that the Passover is here meant is evident from the context. — As there is no 
allusion to this custom anywhere else,’ nothing whatever is known as to 
when it originated. But whether we date the custom back to the Macca- 
baean age or to an earlier period still,* or regard it as having being intro- 
duced? for the first time by the Romans (Grotius, Schleiermacher, Friedlieb) 
for the purpose of conciliating the Jews, we cannot fail to see in it a refer- 
ence to that which is intended to be set forth by the Passover (sparing 
mercy), and applicable most probably to the 14th of Nisan.° 

Ver. 16. Eiyov] The subject is to be found in 6 7yeudy, ver. 15, that is to 
say : the procurator and his soldiers ; for, like Jesus, Barabbas had also to be 
examined before Pilate before his case could be finally disposed of. He 


1 Kada, just as (Xen. Mem. iv. 6.5; Polyb. 
jii. 107. 10; Lucian, Cont. 24; Diod. Sic. i. 
36; in classical Greek xadarep is usually 
employed), occurs nowhere else in the 
New Testament. 

2 Kiihner, II. 1, p. 412; Winer, p. 374 [E. T. 
500]. 

3 For an account of which, however, see 
Bynaeus, de morte Chr. III. p. 97 ff. 

4 Ewald, Gesch. Chr. p. 570. 

>It may be mentioned as tending to favor 
this supposition, that while no trace of 
such a custom is met with in the Talmud, 


there is something to a certain modified 
extent analogous to it in the practice ob- 
served by the Romans at the feast of the 
lectisternia (Liv. vy. 14). Schoettgen detects 
an allusion to some such origin in Pesachim 
f. 91, 1, though this is very doubtful. Then, 
as for the statement of Josephus, Anfét. xx. 
9. 8, which is quoted by Keim, it cannot be 
said to imply the existence of any practice, 
and it refers besides to a case in which ten 
persons were liberated. 
5 Comp. on John xviii. 24, 39. 


CHAP. XXVItI., 17-19. 497 


was lying in the prison in the praetorium awaiting execution, after having 
received sentence of death. — Concerning this robber and murderer Jesus 
Barabbas (see the critical remarks), nothing further is known. The name 
Barabbas occurs very frequently even in the Talmud.! There is the less 
reason, therefore, for thinking, with Olshausen, that the characteristic sig- 
nificance of the name 838 13, father’s son (i.e., probably the son of a Rabbi, 
xxiii. 9), in close proximity with the person of Jesus, is an illustration of 
the saying : ‘‘ Ludit in humanis divina potentia rebus,” ‘‘ Divine power 
amuses itself with human affairs.” Still it is possible that the accidental 
similarity in the name Jesus (see the critical remarks) may have helped to 
suggest to Pilate the release of Barabbas as an alternative, though, after all, 
the circumstance that the latter was a most notorious criminal undoubtedly 
swayed him most. For the baser the criminal, the less would Pilate expect 
them to demand his release. ‘‘ But they would sooner have asked the 
devil himself to be liberated,” Luther’s gloss. 

Ver. 17. Ojv] In accordance with the custom referred to, and as it so 
happened that at that moment there lay under sentence of death (¥v. 15, 16) 
a noted criminal called Jesus Barabbas, Pilate got the multitude that was 
collected outside gathered together, and then asked them to choose between 
Jesus Barabbas and Jesus who was called the Messiah. —airav] refers not to 
the members of the Sanhedrim, but to the dyAoc, ver. 15. See ver. 20. 

Ver. 18. Tap] Had he not been aware, etc., he would not have thus at- 
tempted to effect the release of Jesus. — rapédwxav] The subject of the verb 
is, of course, the members of the Sanhedrim (ver. 2), whose dominant selfish- 
ness was too conspicuous in itself, as well as from the animus that char- 
acterized their behavior, to escape his notice. They were jealous of the im- 
portance and influence of Jesus ; dca denotes the motive which animated 
them : because of envy.* This was the causa remotior. 

Ver. 19. Before, Pilate had submitted the question of ver. 17 to the con- 
sideration of the people by way of sounding them. Now, he seats himself 
upon the tribunal (upon the 2@do7pworov, John xix. 13) for the purpose of 
hearing the decision of the multitude, and of thereafter pronouncing sen- 
tence. But while he is sitting on the tribunal, and before he had time 
again to address his question to the multitude, his wife sends, ete. This 
particular is peculiar to Matthew ; whereas the sending to Herod, and that 
before the proposal about the release, occurs only in Lwke (xxiii. 6 ff.); and 
as for John, he omits both those circumstances altogether, though, on the 
whole, his account of the trial before Pilate is much more detailed than the 
concise narrative of Matthew, and that without any want of harmony being 
found between the two evangelists. — 7% yw aitov| for since the time of 
Augustus it was customary for Roman governors to take their wives with 
them into the provinces.* According to tradition, the name of Pilate’s 
wife was Procla, or Claudia Procula.* In the Greek church she has been 
canonized. — 7éyovca]} through her messengers, xxii. 16, xi. 2. — pydév cor x. 

1 Lightfoot, p. 489. 4 See Huang. Nicod. ii., and thereon Thilo, 


2 See Winer, p. 372 [E. T. 497]. p. 522 ff, 
3 Tacit. Ann. iii. 33 f. 


498 THE GOSPEL OF MATTHEW. 


tr. duc. éx.] comp. viii. 29; John ii. 4. She was afraid that a judgment 
from the gods would be the consequence if he had anything to do with the 
death of Jesus. — roAad yap érafov, x.t.A.] This alarming dream is to be 
accounted for on the understanding that the governor’s wife, who in the 
Evang. Nicod. is described, and it may be correctly, as GeooeBy¢ and iovdaifovea,* 
may have heard of Jesus, may even have seen Him and felt a lively interest 
in Him, and may have been informed of His arrest as well as of the jeopardy 
in which His life was placed. There is nothing to show that Matthew in- 
tended us to regard this incident as a special divine interposition. There is 
the less reason for relegating it to the domain of legend (Strauss, Ewald, 
Scholten, Volkmar, Keim). — ojuepov] during the part of the night belonging 
to the current day. —xar’ évap] see on i. 20. It was a terrible morning- 
dream. 

Ver. 20. The question of ver. 17 is still under the consideration of the 
assembled crowd ; and while Pilate, who had mounted the tribunal for the 
purpose of hearing their decision, is occupied with the messengers from his 
wife, the members of the Sanhedrim take advantage of this interruption to 
persuade the people, ete. —iva] purpose of ireiav. “Oxwe is likewise used 
with zeifew by Greek authors.? 

Ver. 21. ’Aroxpifeic 63, x.7.2.] The governor, having from his tribunal 
overheard this parleying of the members of the Sanhedrim with the people, 
now replies to it by once more demanding of the latter, with a view to a 
final decision : which of the two, etc. He thus puts a stop to the officious 
conduct of the hierarchs, and resumes his attitude of waiting for the answer 
of the crowd. 

Ver. 22. Ti oby rorfow Inoovv ;] What, then (if Barabbas is to be released), 
am I to do with Jesus, how shall I dispose of Him? On this use of the 
double accusative with zoveiv, in the sense of doing good or evil to any one, 
comp. Kithner, I. 1, p. 277; Wunder, ad Soph. Phil. 684. — cravpubirw] ob 
Aéyovor’ doverdto, GALA oTavpobiro, iva Kai 7d eldog Tov Oavarov KaKovpxov (as a 
rebel) aveAéy yy abrév, ‘‘they do not say, let him be put to death, but let him 
be crucified, in order that the manner of his death may convict him as a 
rebel,” Euthymius Zigabenus. Doubtless it was also at the instigation of 
the hierarchs that they demanded this particular form of punishment. 

Ver. 23. Ti ydp] does not presuppose a ‘‘ non faciam,” or some such phrase 
(Grotius, Maldonatus, Fritzsche), but yép denotes an inference from the exist- 
ing state of matters, and throws the whole emphasis upon ri : guid ergo. 
See on John ix. 30 and 1 Cor. xi. 22. Chrysostom appropriately points 
out how dvdvdpwc Kai o¢6dpa paraxéc Pilate behaved. 

Ver. 24. The circumstance of Pilate’s washing his hands, which Strauss 
and Keim regard as legendary, is also peculiar to Matthew. — érz ovdév agerei] 
that it was all of no avail, John xii. 19.° — aA20 parAov OdpvBoc yiverat| that the 
tumult is only aggravated thereby. — arevirato tac yeipac| he washed his hands, 


1See Tischendorf, Pilati circa Christum practicum,” ‘This prejudging our efforts 
judic. etc. ex actis Pilat. 1855, p. 16 f. before the issue is desperate indeed,” Ben- 

2 See Schoem. ad Plut. Cleom. p. 192. gel. 

3“Desperatum est hoc praejudicium 


CHAP. XXVII., 25-27. 499 


to show that he was no party to the execution thus insisted upon. This 
ceremony was a piece of Jewish symbolism,’ and as Pilate understood its 
significance, he would hope by having recourse to it to make himself the 
more intelligible to Jews. It is possible that what led the governor to con- 
form to this Jewish custom was the analogy between it and similar practices 
observed by Gentiles after a murder has been committed,* more particularly as 
it was also customary for Gentile judges before pronouncing sentence to 
protest, and that ‘‘ rpdg rov FAsov,” * that they were innocent of the blood of 
the person about to be condemned.* —az0 tov aiuaroc] a Greek author would 
have used the genitive merely.* The construction with axé is a Hebraism 
(21) °P3, 2 Sam. iii. 27), founded on the idea of removing to a distance.” 
—ipeic dp.] See on ver. 4. 

Ver. 25. ’Eo’ judc, «.t.4.] Defiant and vindictive cry, in the hurry of 
which (ro:aity yap 7 épuy K. 7 Tovypa éxvdvuia, ‘‘ for such as this are passion 
and evil desire,” Chrysostom) the verb is left to be understood (xxiii. 35).” 
From what we know of such wild outbursts of popular fanaticism, there is 
no ground for supposing (Strauss ; comp. also Keim, Scholten, Volkmar) 
that the language only represents the matter as seen from the standpoint of 
Christians, by whom the destruction of the Jews had come to be regarded 
as a judgment for putting Jesus to death. And as for their wicked impre- 
cations on their own heads, they were only in accordance with the decrees 
of the divine nemesis, and therefore are to be regarded in the light of un- 
conscious prophecy. 

Ver. 26. &payed2décac] a late word adopted from the Latin, and used for 
pactryowv.® It was the practice among the Romans to scourge the culprit 
(with cords or thongs of leather) before crucifying him.’ According to the 
more detailed narrative of John xix. 1 ff., Pilate, after this scourging was 
over, and while the soldiers were mocking Him, made a final attempt to 
have Jesus set at liberty. According to Luke xxiii. 16, the governor con- 
templated ultimate scourging immediately after the examination before 
Herod,—a circumstance which neither prevents us from supposing that he 
subsequently carried out his intention (in opposition to Strauss), nor justi- 
fies the interpretation of our passage given by Paulus: whom he had pre- 
viously scourged (with a view to His being liberated). — rapédwxev| namely, 
to the Roman soldiers, ver. 27. These latter were entrusted with the task 
of seeing the execution carried out. 

Ver. 27. Eic 7d xpaitépiov| It would appear, then, that the scourging had 
taken place outside, in front of the praetorium, beside the tribunal. This 
coincides with Mark xy. 16, tow ri¢ avagc, which merely defines the locality 


1 Deut. xxi. 6 f.; Joseph. Anit. iv. 8. 16; 6 Comp. Hist. Susann. 46, and cadapos amo, 
Sota viii. 6. Acts xx. 26. 

2 Herod. i. 35; Virg. Aen. ii. 719 f. ; Soph. 7 Comp. 2 Sam. i. 16, and see on Acts 
Aj. 654, and Schneidewin thereon; Wetstein xviii. 6. 
on our passage. 8 Comp. John ii. 15; see Wetstein. 

3 Constitt. Ap. ii. 52.1; Hvang. Nicod. ix. * Liv. xxxiii. 86; Curt. vii. 11. 28; Valer. 

4See Thilo, ad Cod. Apocr.I. p. 573 f.; Max. i. 7; Joseph. Bell. v. 11. 1, al. ; Heyne, 
Heberle in the Stud. u. K7rit. 1856, p. 859 ff. Opusc. III. p. 184 f. ; Keim, III. p. 390 f. 


§ Maetzner, ad Lycurg. 79. 


500 THE GOSPEL OF MATTHEW. 


more precisely. The rpaitépiov was the official residence, the palace of the 
governor, it being commonly supposed * that Herod’s palace, situated in the 
higher part of the city, was used for this purpose. But, inasmuch as this 
latter building would have to be reserved for the accommodation of Herod 
himself whenever he had occasion to go to Jerusalem, and with what is 
said at Luke xxiii. 7 before us, it is more likely that the palace in question 
was a different and special one connected with fort Antonia, in which the 
oreipa (comp. Acts xxi. 31-33) was quartered.* — oi orpatiarat Toi Hyeu. | who 
were on duty as the procurator’s orderlies. — éz’ avtév] about Him ; comp. 
Mark v. 21, not adversus eum (Fritzsche, de Wette); for they were merely to 
make sport of Him. — ry oreipav] the cohort, which was quartered at Jerusa- 
lem in the garrison of the praetorium (in Caesarea there were five cohorts 
stationed).? The expression : the whole cohort, is to be understood in its 
popular, and not in a strictly literal sense ; the ozpatcéra, to whose charge 
Jesus had been committed, and who only formed part of the cohort, invited 
all their comrades to join them who happened to be in barracks at the time. 

Ver. 28. ’Evdtcarvrec (see the critical remarks) is to be explained by the 
fact that previous to the scourging all His clothes had been pulled off.* 
They accordingly put on His under garments again, and instead of the 
upper robes (ra iwdtia, ver. 31) they arrayed Him in a red sagwm, the ordi- 
nary military cloak,’ for the purpose, however, of ridiculing His pretensions 
to the dignity of king; for kings and emperors likewise wore the yAayic, 
the only difference being that in their case the garment was longer and of a 
finer texture. On this military cloak, which was first used by the Macedo- 
nians, see Hermann, Privatalterth. § xxi. 20 ; Friedlieb, p. 118. Accord- 
ing to the other evangelists, the cloak made use of on this occasion was of 
a purple color ; but Matthew would intend scarlet” to be taken as at least 
conveying the idea of purple. 

Ver. 29 f. EE dxav8év] belongs to rAéEavtec. What is meant is something 
made by twisting together young flexible thorns so as to represent the royal 
diadem. The object was not to produce suffering, but to excite ridicule ; 
so that while we cannot altogether dissociate the idea of something painful 
from this crown of thorns, we must not conceive of it as covered with 
prickles which were intentionally thrust into the flesh. Michaelis adopts the 
rendering Barenklau (axavSoc); but thisis incompatible with the axavdvvov of 
Mark xv. 17, which adjective is never used with reference to the plant just 
mentioned. Besides, this latter was a plant that was highly prized (for 
which reason it was often used for ornamental purposes in pieces of sculpt- 
ure and on the capitals of Corinthian pillars), and therefore would be but 
ill suited for a caricature. It is impossible to determine what species of 
thorn it was.°— ka? cdAayov] é9yxav being understood, the connection with 


1S0 also Ewald, Gesch. Chr. p. 53, and 6 Plut. Demetr. 41 f. ; Mor. p. 186 C, al. 
Keim, III. p. 359 ff. 7™Heb. ix. 19; Rev. xvii. 3; Num. iv. 8; 

2 Comp. also Weiss on Mark xy. 16. Plut. Fab. xv. 

3 Comp. on John xviii. 3. 8 Possibly the so-called spina Christi ? 

4 Acts xvi. 22; Dionys. Hal. ix. 596. see Tobler, Denkbl. pp. 113, 179. 


5 Plut. Sert. 14; Philop. 9, 11. 


CHAP. XXVII.,o);,.02: 501 
* éréSyxav is zeugmatic.—Observe the imperfects évéra:fov and érurroy as indi- 
cating the continuous character of the proceeding. 

Ver. 31. Kai évédvuoav avrov ra iuar. aitov| His upper garments, for which 
they had substituted the saywm. This is in no way at variance with évdi- 
cavrec, ver. 28.—We are to understand that as the crown of thorns had now 
served its purpose, it was also taken off at the same time. 

Ver. 32. ’E&epyéuevor] because the law required that all executions should 
take place outside the city.‘ On the question as to whether this Simon of 
Cyrene, a place in Libya Pentapolitana, thickly peopled with Jews, resided 
statedly in Jerusalem (Acts vi. 19), or was only there on a visit (Acts ii. 10), 
see below. It was usual to compel the person who was to be executed to carry 
his own cross ;°? to this the case of Jesus was no exception, John xix. 17. This 
statement of John does not exclude what is here said with regard to Simon 
and the cross, nor does it pretend to deny it (Keim), but it simply passes it 
over in silence, recording merely the main point in question,—the fact, 
namely, that Jesus had to carry His own cross (though there is nothing to 
prevent the supposition that He may have broken down under the burden 
before reaching the scene of the crucifixion). — That with such a large crowd 
following (Luke xxiii. 27) they should notwithstanding compel a foreigner 
who happened to be going toward the city (Mark, Luke) to carry the cross 
the rest of the way, is a circumstance sufficiently accounted for by the infamy 
that attached to that odious thing. Possibly Simon was a slave. To suppose 
that he was one of Jesus’ followers, and that for this reason he had been 
pressed into the service (Grotius, Kuinoel), is altogether arbitrary, for, 


1 Num. xv. 35 f. ; 1 Kings xxi. 13; Acts vii. 
58; Lightfoot and Grotius on our passage. 

2 See on x. 38, and Keim, p. 397 f. That is 
tosay, the post, the upright beam of the 
cross, to which the transverse beam was not 
attached till the scene of the execution was 
reached, where the instrument of torture 
was duly put together and then set up with 
the criminal nailed to it. Hence (because 
oravpos originally meant a post) we find 
Greek authors making use of such expres- 
sions aS oravpov deeper, exhepew, Bactacerv, 
AapBavery, aipervy, Comp. ctavpodopery ; Latin 
writers, however, with rather more regard 
for precision, distinguish between the up- 
right beam which the criminal was called 
upon to carry, and the crux as it appeared 
when completed and set up at the place of 
execution. The upright beam which the 
cruciarius was compelled to drag after him 
was called patibulum ; hence we never meet 
with the phrase crucem ferre, but always 
patibulum (the upright post) ferve, which 
patibulum was placed upon the poor crimi- 
nal’s back, and with his outstretched hands 
securely tied to it, he had to balance it the 
best way he could upon his neck and shoul- 
ders. It is this distinction between crux 
and patibulum that enables us adequately 


to explain the well-known passages of 
Plautus: ‘‘Patibulum ferat per urbem, 
deinde affigatur cruci’”? (ap. Non. Marcell. 
221), and ‘* Dispessis manibus quom patibu- 
lum habebis” (Af/. glor. ii. 4. 7), and simi- 
larly with regard to expressions referring to 
the cross (as completed and set up): in 
crucem (¢odlere, in crucem agere (Cicero and 
others), etc. ; the comic expression crucisa- 
dus (Plaut. Bacch. ii. 3. 128); as also the 
passage in Tacit. Ann. xiv. 38, where the 
different modes of punishing by death are 
enumerated, beginning with those of a 
general nature and ending with the more 
specific: ‘‘Caedes, patibula (beams for 
penal purposes generally), ignes, cruces.” 
From this it is manifest at once that it 
would be incorrect to suppose, with Keim, 
that all that Christ had to carry was the 
cross-beam. Such a view is at variance both 
with the language of our text: tov oravpov 
aipe, and with the Latin phrase: patidu- 
tum ferre. So much is the palibulum re- 
garded as the main portion of the cross, 
that in poetry it issometimes used as equiy- 
alent to crua, asin Prudent. Peristeph. ix. 
641: ‘Crux illa nostra est, nos patibulum 
ascendimus,” ‘‘That cross is ours, we 
mount the beam.” 


502 THE GOSPEL OF MATTHEW. 

according to the text, the determining circumstance lies in the fact that he 
was av¥pwrov Kupyvaiov. A foreigner coming from Cyrene would not be con- 
sidered too respectable a person to be employed in such degrading work. 
That Simon, however, became a Christian, and that perhaps in consequence 
of his thus carrying the cross and being present at the crucifixion, is a legit- 
imate inference from Mark xv. 21 compared with Rom. xvi. 13. —7yyap.] 
See on v. 41. -—iva] mentions the object for which this was done. 

Ver. 38. ToAyoda, Chald. 897293, Heb. 02493, meaning a skull. Jerome 
and most other expositors (including Luther, Fritzsche, Strauss, Tholuck, 
Friedlieb) derive the name from the circumstance that, as this was a place 
for executing criminals, it abounded with skulls (which, however, are not to 
be conceived of as lying unburied); while Cyril, Jerome, Calovius, Reland, 
Bengel, Paulus, Liicke, de Wette, Ewald, Bleek, Volkmar, Keim, Weiss, 
on the other hand, trace the name to the shape of the hill.’ The latter view, 
which is also that of Thenius? and Furer,* ought to be preferred, because 
the name means nothing more than simply a skull (not hill of skulls, valley 
of skulls, and such like, as though the plural (skulls) had been used). A 
similar practice of giving to places, according to their shape, such names, 
as Kopf, Scheitel,* Stirn, and the like, is not uncommon among ourselves— 
(Germans). —6 éore xpaviov téro¢ Aeyduevoc] which, i.e., which Aramaic term 
denotes (éori) a so-called (Aeyou.)° place of a skull, Lat.: quod calvariae quem di- 
cunt loewm significat. It was probably a round, bare hill. But where it stood 
it isutterly impossible to determine, although it may be regarded as certain 
(in opposition to Raumer, Schubert, Krafft, Lange, Furer) that it was not 
the place within the city (the so-called Mount Calvary), which subsequently 
to the time of Constantine had been excavated under the impression that it 
was so,—a point, however, which Ritter® leaves somewhat doubtful.’ 

Ver. 34. The Jews were in the habit of giving the criminal a stupefying 
drink before nailing him to the cross.*. This drink consisted of ine (see 
the critical remarks) mixed with gall, according to Matthew ; with myrrh, 
according to Mark. yoA7 admits of no other meaning than that of gall, and 


1Jn trying to account for the origin of 
the name, the Fathers, from Tertullian and 
Origen down to Euthymius Zigabenus, make 
reference to the tradition that Adam was 
buried in the place of askull. This Judaeo- 
Christian legend is very old and very widely 
diffused (see Dillman, ‘‘zum christl. Adam- 
buch,” in Ewald’s Jahrb. V. p. 142); but we 
are not warranted in confidently assuming 
that it was of pre-Christian origin (Dill- 
mann, simply because Athanasius, Epipha- 
nius, and others have characterized it as 
Jewish; it would naturally find much 
favor, as being well calculated to serve the 
interests of Christian typology (Augustine : 
“quia ibi erectus sit medicus, ubi jacebat 
aegrotus,”’ ‘‘since there a physician would 
be raised up where a sick man was lying,” 
ete. etc.). 


2 Tn Ilgen’s Zeitschr. f. Theol. 1842, 4, p. 1 
ff. 

3 In Schenkel’s Zex. II. p. 506. 

4 Comp. the hills called Kefadac in Strabo, 
Xvii. 3, p. 835. 

5 Kiihner, II. 1, p. 282. 

6 Hrak. XV\. 1, p. 427 ff. 

7 See Robinson, Paldst. II. p. 270 ff., and 
his newere Forsch. 1857, p. 332 ff. In answer 
to Robinson, consult Schaffter, @. dchte Lage 
d. heil. Grabes, 1849. But see in general, 
Tobler, Golgatha, seine Kirchen und Kloster, 
1851; Fallmerayer in the Adbh. d. Baier. 
Akad. 1852, VI. p. 641 ff. } Ewald, Jahrb. I. 
p. 118 ff., VI. p. 84 ff.; Arnold in Herzog’s 
Encykt. V. p. 807 ff. ; Keim, III. p. 404 ff. 

8 Sanhedr. vi. See Wetstein, ad Mare. xv. 
23; Doughtaeus, Anal. II. p. 42. 


CHAP, XXVII., 35. 503 
on no account must it be made to bear the sense of myrrh or wormwood ? 
(Beza, Grotius, Paulus, Langen, Steinmeyer, Keim). The tradition about 
the gall, which unquestionably belongs to a later period, originated in the 
LXX. rendering of Ps. lxix. 22 ; people wished to make out that there was 
maltreatment in the very drink that was offered. — yevoduevoc] According to 
Matthew, then, Jesus rejected the potion because the taste of gall made it 
undrinkable. <A later view than that embodied in Mark xy. 23, from which 
passage it would appear that Jesus does not even taste the drink, but 
declines it altogether, because He has no desire to be stupefied before 
death. 

Ver. 35. Zravpécavrec] The cross consisted of the upright post and the 
horizontal beam (called by Justin and Tertullian : antenna), the former 
usually projecting some distance beyond the latter (as was also the case, 
according to the tradition of the early church, with the cross of Jesus.)? As 
arule, it was first of all set up, and then the person to be crucified was 
hoisted on to it with his body resting upon a peg (x7jyua) that passed be- 
tween his legs ;? after which the hands were nailed to the cross-beam. 
Paulus, * following Clericus on John xx. 27 and Dathe on Ps. xxii. 7, firmly 
maintains that the feet were not ndiled as well.? In answer to Paulus, see 
Hug,°® and especially Bihr.’. For the history of this dispute, see Tholuck.® 
That the feet were usually nailed, and that the case of Jesus was no exception to 
the general rule, may be regarded as beyond doubt, and that for the follow- 
ing reasons : (1) Because nothing can be more evident than that Plautus? 
presupposes that to nail the feet as well asthe hands was the ordinary practice, 
and that he intends the 07s to point to something of an exceptional character ; 


1No doubt the LXX. translate m9, 
wormwood, by xodAy (Proy. v. 4; Lam. iii. 
15); but in those passages they took it as 
meaning literal ‘* gall,” just as in the case 
of Ps. lxix. 22, which regulates the sense of 
our present passage, they also understood 
gall to be meant, although the word in the 
original is WN (poison). Comp. Jer. viii. 
14; Deut. xxix.17. A usage so entirely for- 
eign to the Greek tongue certainly cannot 
be justified on the ground of one or two 
passages, like these from the Septuagint. 
Had ‘bitter spiced wine” (Steinmeyer) 
been what Matthew intended, he would 
have had no more difficulty in expressing 
this than Mark himself. But the idea he 
wished to convey was that of wine along 
with gall, in fact mixed with it, and this 
idea he expresses as plain as words can 
speak it. Comp. Barnab. 7: cravpwiteis 
érotigeto 6£eu Kai xoAy, ‘at His crucifixion 
there was given Him to drink vinegar and 
gall.” 

2See Friedlieb, p. 130 ff.; Langen, p. 
821 ff. 

3 é&h’ G eroxodyTat ot oravpovpevor, Justin, 


ce. Tryph. 91; Iren. Haer. ii. 24. 4. 


4See his Komment., exeg. Handb., and 
Skizzen aus m. Bildungsgesch. 1839, p. 146 ff. 

5 This question possesses an interest not 
merely antiquarian ; it is of essential im- 
portance in enabling us to judge of the 
view held by Dr. Paulus, that the death of 
Jesus was only apparent and not real. An. 
opinion which is likewise held more or less 
decidedly by Liicke, Fritzsche, Ammon, 
Baumgarten-Crusius, Winer, de pedum in 
cruce affixione, 1845; Schleiermacher, Z. J. 
p. 447. 

6 In the Freib. Zeitschr. Wl. p. 167 ff., and 
V; p. 102 ff-, Vil: p. 153: ff. ; Gutackt. IL p- 
174. 

7In Heydenreich and Wiiffell’s Zeitschr. 
1830, 2, p. 308 ff., and in Tholuck’ s liter. 
Anz. 1835, Nos. 1-6. 

8 Liter. Anz. 1834, Nos. 53-55, and Langen, 
p. 312 ff. 

9 Mostell. ii. 1.13 (“ego dabo ei talentum, 
primus qui in crucem excucurrerit, sed ea 
lege, ut ofigantur bis pedes, bis brachia,” “1 
will give a talent to that one who first has 
gone to destruction (to a cross), but with 
this condition, that twice his feet, twice 
his arms be fastened to it’’). 


504 THE GOSPEL OF MATTHEW. 

(2) because Justin’ expressly maintains,” and that in a polemical treatise, at 
a time when crucifixion was still in vogue, that the feet of Jesus were 
pierced with nails, and treats the circumstance as a fulfilment of Ps. xxii. 
17, without the slightest hint that in this there was any departure from the 
usual custom ; (8) because Tertullian,* in whose day also crucifixion was 
universally practised (Constantine having been the first to abolish it), agrees 
with Justin in seeing Ps. xxii. 17 verified in Christ, and would hardly have 
said, with reference to the piercing of our Lord’s hands and feet : ‘‘ quae 
proprie atrocitas crucis est,” unless it had been generally understood that the 
feet were nailed as well ; (4) because Lucian‘ and Lucan ® furnish nothing 
but arguments @ silentio, which have the less weight that these passages do 
not pretend to give a full account of the matter ; (5) because we nowhere 
find in ancient literature any distinct mention of a case in which the feet 
hung loose or were merely tied to the cross, for Xen.° merely informs us that 
the binding of the hands and the feet was a practice peculiar to the Hgyp- 
tians ; (6) and lastly, because in Luke xxiv. 39 f. itself the piercing of the 
feet is taken for granted, for only by means of the pierced hands and feet 
was Christ to be identified (His corporeality was also to be proved, but that 
was to be done by the handling which followed). It is probable that each 
foot was nailed separately.’ The most plausible arguments in addition to 
the above against the view that the feet were nailed are : (1) what is said in 
John xx, 25,° where, however, the absence of any mention of the feet on the 
part of Thomas entirely accord with his natural sense of propriety. He 
assumes the Lord, who had been seen by His fellow-disciples, to be standing 
before him ; and so, with a view to identification, he wishes to feel the 
prints of the nails in His hands and the wound in His side, those being the 
marks that could then be most conveniently got at; and that is enough. To 
have stooped down to examine the feet as well would have been going 
rather far, would have seemed somewhat indecent, somewhat undignified, 
nay, we should say that the introduction of such a feature into the narrative 
would have had an apocryphal air ; (2) the fact that while Socrates’ speaks 
of the Empress Helena, who found the cross, as having also discovered rove 
jiouc ot Talc yepol TOU Xpiotow Kata Tov ortavpov éverayyoav, ‘‘the nails which 


1 ¢. Tryph. 97. 

2 Comp. Apol. I. 35. 

8 C. Mare. iii. 19. 

4 Prometh. 2 (where, moreover, it is not 
crucifying in the proper sense of the word 
that is alluded to). 

5 Phars. vi. 547 (‘‘insertum manibus chaly- 
bem).” 

6 Eph. iv. 2. 

7 This view is borne out not only by the 
simple fact that it would be somewhat im- 
practicable to pierce doth the feet when lying 
one above the other (as they usually appear in 
pictures, and as they are already repre- 
sented by Nonnus, John xx. 19), because in 
order to secure the necessary firmness, the 
nail would require to be so long and thick 


that there would bea danger of dislocating, 
if not of shattering the feet, but it is still 
further confirmed by the ancient tradition 
respecting the two pairs of nails that were 
used to fasten Jesus to the cross. See 
below under No. 2. And how is it possible 
to understand aright what Plautus says 
about feet ¢wice-nailed, if we are to con- 
ceive of them as lying one upon the other ! 
Probably they were placed alongside of 
each other, and then nailed with the soles 
flat upon the upright beam of the cross. A 
board for the feet (suppedaneuwm) was not 
used, being unnecessary. 

8 See Liicke, II. p. 798. 

PIE TIS Ny WG 


CHAP, XXVII., 37. 505 


were fastened in the hands of Christ at the cross,” he makes no mention of 
the nails for the feet. But, according to the context, the nails for the 
hands are to be understood as forming merely a partof what was dis- 
covered along with the cross, as forming a portion, that is, of what the 
empress gave as a present to her son. 'This passage, however, has all the less 
force as an argument against the supposition that the feet were nailed, that 
Ambrose,’ while also stating that two nails belonging to the cross that was 
discovered were presented to Constantine, clearly indicates at the same 
time that they were the nails for the feet (‘ferro pedum”). It would 
appear, then, that two nails were presented to Constantine, but opinion was 
divided as to whether they were those for the feet or those for the hands, 
there being also a third view, to the effect that the two pairs were present- 
ed together.? This diversity of opinion bears, however, a united testimony, 
not against, but in favor of the practice of nailing the feet, and that a testi- 
mony belonging to a time when there were many still living who had a vivid 
recollection of the days when crucifixion was quite common. — d:ewepicarr 

7a ivatia aitov] The criminal when affixed to the cross was absolutely 
naked,* and his clothes fell, as a perquisite, to the executioners (Wetstein 
on our passage). The supposition that there was a cloth for covering the 
loins has at least no early testimony to support it.*— Bd2Aovre¢ KAqpov] more 
precisely in John xix. 23 f. Whether this was done by means of dice or by 
putting the lots into something or other (a helmet) and then shaking them 
out (comp. on Acts i. 26), it is impossible to say. 

Ver. 37. Whether it was customary to have a tablet (cavic) put over the 
cross containing a statement of the crime (rj airiav aitov) for which the 
offender was being executed, we have no means of knowing. According 
to Dio Cass. liv. 8, it might be seen hanging round the neck of the crimi- 
nal even when he was passing through the city to the place of execution.® 
— érédnxav] It was undoubtedly affixed to the part of the cross that pro- 
jected above the horizontal beam. But it is inadmissible, in deference to 
the hypothesis that the ‘title’ (John xix. 19) was aflixed to the cross 
before it was set up, either to transpose the verses in the text (vv. 33, 34, 
37, 38, 35, 36, 89, so Wassenbergh in Valckenaer, Schol. II. p. 31), or to 
take érédyxav (Kuinoel) in the sense of the pluperfect, or to assume some 
inaccuracy in the narrative, by supposing, for example, that the various 
details are not given in chronological order, and that the mention of the 
watch being set is introduced too soon, from a desire to include at once all 
that was done (de Wette, Bleek) by the soldiers (who, however, are under- 
stood to have nailed up the ‘‘ title’ as well !). According to Matthew’s 
statement, it would appear that when the soldiers had finished the work of 
crucifixion, and had cast lots for the clothes, and had mounted guard over 
the body, they proceed, by way of supplementing what had been already 
done, to affix the ‘‘ title” to the top of the cross. The terms of the inscrip- 


1 Or. deobitu Theodos. § 47. 4 See Thilo, ad Evang. Nicod. x. p. 582 f. 
2 Rufinus, H. Z. ii. 8; Theodoret, H. Z. i. ®* Comp. also Sueton. Domit. 10; Calig. 325 
Li Euseb. y. 1. 19. 


3 Artemid. ii. 58; Lipsius, de crwee, ii. 7. 


506 THE GOSPEL OF MATTHEW. 


tion are given with diplomatic precision in John xix. 20, though others, 
including Keim, prefer the shortest version, being that found in Mark. 

Ver. 38. Tére] then, after the crucifixion of Jesus was thus disposed of. — 
oravpowvtar] Spoken with reference to another band of soldiers which takes 
the place of xadjwevoe étypovy avtov éxei, ver. 86. The whole statement is 
merely of a cursory and summary nature. 

Ver. 39. Oi dé taparop.| That what is here said seems to imply, what 
would ill accord with the synoptic statement as to the day on which our 
Lord was crucified, that this took place on a working day (Fritzsche, de 
Wette), is not to be denied,’ though it cannot be assumed with certainty 
that such was the case. But there can be no doubt that the place of execu- 
tion was close to a public thoroughfare. — xcvovvtec tag xed. ait.| The shak- 
ing of the head here is not to be regarded as that which expresses refusal or 
passion,* but, according to Ps. xxii. 8, as indicating @ malicious jeering at 
the helplessness of one who had made such lofty pretensions, ver. 40.° 

Ver. 40. ‘Eteyov 08 7a TovaiTa Kwpwdodvtec Oc Wetotnv, ‘‘ Now they said such 
things, mocking at Him as a liar,” Euthymius Zigabenus. We should not 
fail to notice the parallelism in both the clauses (in opposition to Fritzsche, 
who puts a comma merely after ceavtév, and supposes that in beth instances 
the imperative is conditioned by ¢ vide ei tod Veoi), 6 xaradtor, x.7.2., being 
parallel to ei vide ei r. 3., and cécov ceavtév to KxatdBybe ard Tov oTavpod. —6é 
For the use of the present par- 
ticiple in a characterizing sense (the destroyer, etc.), comp. xxii. 37. The 
allegation of the witnesses, xxvi. 61, had come to be a matter of public talk, 
which is scarcely to be wondered at considering the extraordinary nature of 
it. — Observe, moreover, that here the emphasis is on vide (comp. iv. 3), 
while in ver. 43 it is on eov. 

Ver. 42. Parallelism similar to that of ver. 40. 


Katahbwr, «.T.A.] is an allusion to xxvi. 61. 





kat wioTebvopmerv (see 
the critical remarks) éx’ airtd: and we believe on Him (at once), that is, as 
actually being the Messiah. éxi with the dative (Luke xxiv. 25) conveys 
the idea that the faith would rest upon Him.* 

Ver. 43. In the mouth of the members of Sanhedrim, who in ver. 41 are 
introduced as joining in the blasphemies of the passers-by, and who, ver. 
42, have likewise the inscription over the cross in view, the jeering assumes 
a more impious character. They now avail themselves even of the language 
of holy writ, quoting from the 22d Psalm (which, moreover, the Jews 
declared to be non-Messianic), the 5th verse of which is given somewhat 
loosely from the LXX.°— 8é4er abtév] is the rendering of the Heb. 13 YSN, 
and is to be interpreted in accordance with the Septuagint usage of béAew :° 
if He is the object of his desire, é.e., if he likes Him.” In other instances the 
LXX. give the preposition as well, rendering the Hebrew (1 Sam. xviii. 22, 


1 Comp. on John xviii. 28; Mark xy. 21. 

2 Hom. Z/. xvii. 200, 442; Od. v. 285, 376. 

3 Comp. Job xvi. 4; Ps. cix. 25; Lam. ii. 
15; Isa. xxxvil. 22; Jer. xviii. 16; Buxt. 
Lex. Talm. p. 20389; Justin, Ap. I. 38. 

4So also Rom. ix. 33, x. 11; 1 Tim. 1. 16; 


1Peto ii. 6: 

5 HAmigev ert KUpLOV, puTaadw avToV, TwTaTw 
avrTov, ore dEeAEt avTov. 

®See Schleusner, TZhes. 
comp. on Rom. vii. 21. 

7 Comp. Tob. xiii. 6; Ps. xviii. 19, xli. 11. 


ie ps biswand 


CHAP. XXVII., 44, 45. 507 


al.) by Sétew tv tux. Fritzsche supplies picacda ; but in that case we 
should have had merely ei béAec without aitév ; comp. Col. ii. 18. — dre Feod 
eiue vidc] The emphasis is on Jeotv, as conveying the idea: I am not the son 
of aman, but of God, who in consequence will be certain to deliver me.!— 
Observe further the short bounding sentences in which their malicious jeer- 
ing, ver. 42 f., finds vent. 

Ver. 44. Td 0 airé] not : after the same manner (as generally interpreted), 
but expressing the object itself,* for, as is well known, such verbs as denote 
a particular mode of speaking or acting are often construed like Aéyerv turd tx 
or roveiv Tia Te.° — oi Anorai] different from Luke xxiii. 39; the generic inter- 
pretation of the plural * is precluded by the necessary reference to ver. 38. 
The harmonists (Origen, Cyril, Chrysostom, Theophylact, Euthymius Ziga- 
benus, Zeger, Lange) resorted to the expedient of supposing that at jirst 
both of them may have reviled Him, but that subsequently only one was found 
to do so, because the other had in the mean time been converted. Luke 
does not base his account upon a later tradition (Ewald, Schenkel, Keim), 
but upon materials of a more accurate and copious character drawn from a 
different circle of traditions. 

Ver. 45. ’Ard dé éxry¢ Gpac| counting from the third (nine o’clock in the 
morning), the hour at which He had been nailed to the cross, Mark xv. 25. 
Respecting the difficulty of reconciling the statements of Matthew and Mark 
as to the hour in question with what is mentioned by John at xix. 14, and the 
preference that must necessarily be given to the latter, see on John, xix. 14. 
—oxéroc] An ordinary eclipse of the sun was not possible during full moon 
(Origen); for which reason the eclipse of the 202d Olympiad, recorded by 
Phlegon in Syncellus,® and already referred to by Eusebius, is equally out 
of the question.® But as little must we suppose that the reference is to that 
darkness in the air which precedes an ordinary earthquake,’ for it is not an 
earthquake in the ordinary sense that is described in ver. 51 ff.; in fact, 
Mark and Luke, though recording the darkness and the rending of the 
veil, say nothing about the earthquake. The darkness upon this occasion 
was of an unusual, a supernatural character, being as it were the voice of 
God making itself heard through nature, the gloom over which made it 
appear as though the whole earth were bewailing the ignominious death 
which the Son of God was dying. The prodigies, to all appearance similar, 
that are alleged to have accompanied the death of certain heroes of anti- 
quity (see Wetstein), and those solar obscurations alluded to in Rabbinical 
literature, were different in kind from that now before us (ordinary eclipses 
of the sun, such as that which took place after the death of Caesar,)> and, 
even apart from this, would not justify us in relegating what is matter of 


1 Comp. Wisd. ii. 18. 4 Augustine, de cons. ev. iii. 16; Ebrard, 
2Comp. Soph. Qed. Col. 1006: tocatr Krafft. 

overdigers we; Plat. Phaedr. p. 241: 60a rov 5 Chronogr. I. p. 614, ed. Bonn. 

etrepov AeAotdopyKxapev, ‘* Whatever evil things 6 Wieseler, chronol. Synops. p. 387 f. 

we have reproached the other with.” 7 Paulus, Kuinoel, de Wette, Schleier- 
3 Kriiger, § xlvi. 12; Kiihner, II. 1, p. 276. macher, Z. J. p. 448, Weisse. 


Comp. on Phil. ii. 18. 8 Serv. ad. Virg. G. I. 466. 


508 THE GOSPEL OF MATTHEW. 


history, John’s omission of it notwithstanding, to the region of myth (in 
opposition to Strauss, Keim, Scholten), especially when we consider that the 
death in this instance was not that of a mere human hero, that there were 
those still living who could corroborate the evangelic narrative, and that the 
darkness here in question was associated with the extremely peculiar cyueiov 
of the rending of the veil of the temple. — éri raoav ryv yqv| Keeping in 
view the supernatural character of the event as well as the usage elsewhere 
with regard to the somewhat indetinite phraseology zaca or 6/7 7) y7,* it is 
clear that the only rendering in keeping with the tone of the narrative is : 
over the whole carth (xoourkoy d& Fv TO oKédToc, ov pepiKdv, ‘‘the darkness was 
over the world, not a particular part of it,” Theophylact, comp. Chrysostom, 
Euthymius Zigabenus), not merely : over the whole land (Origen, Erasmus, © 
Luther, Maldonatus, Kuinoel, Paulus, Olshausen, Ebrard, Lange, Stein- 
meyer), though at the same time we are not called upon to construe the 
words in accordance with the laws of physical geography ; they are simply 
to be regarded as expressing the popular idea of the matter. 

Ver. 46. ’AveBdnoev| He cried aloud.* — The circumstance of the following 
exclamation being given in Hebrew is sufficiently and naturally enough ac- 
counted for by the jeering language of ver. 47, which language is under- 
stood to be suggested by the sound of the Hebrew words recorded in our 
present passage. — caBaydavi] Chald. : "3APIV = the Heb. "3F3}. Jesus 
gives vent to His feelings in the opening words of the twenty-second Psalm. 
We have here, however, the purely human feeling that arises from a natural 
but momentary quailing before the agonies of death, and which was in every 
respect similar to that which had becn experienced by the author of the 
psalm. The combination of profound mental anguish, in consequence of 
entire abandonment by men, with the well-nigh intolerable pangs of dissolu- 
tion, was all the more natural and inevitable in the case of One whose feel- 
ings were so deep, tender, and real, whose moral consciousness was so pure, 
and whose love was so intense. In éyxaréAumec Jesus expressed, of course, 
what He felt, for His ordinary conviction that He was in fellowship with God 
had for the moment given way under the pressure of extreme bodily and men- 
tal suffering, and amere passing feeling, as though He were no longer sustain- 
ed by the power of the divine life had taken its place ;* but this subjective 
feeling must not be confounded with actual objective desertion on the part of 
God (in opposition to Olshausen and earlier expositors), which in the case 
of Jesus would have been a metaphysical and moral impossibility. The 
dividing of the exclamation into different parts, so as to correspond to the dif- 
ferent elements in Christ’s nature, merely gives rise to arbitrary and fanciful 
views (Lange, Ebrard), similar to those which have been based on the meta- 
physical deduction from the idea of necessity (Ebrard). To assume, as the 
theologians have done, that in the distressful cry of abandonment we have 
the vicarious enduring of the wrath of God,* or the infliction of divine punish- 


UTuke xxi. 85, xxiii, 44; Rom. ix. 17, x: 88; LXX. and Apocr., Herod., Plato. 
18; Rev. xili. 3. 3 Comp. Gess, p. 196. 

2 See Winer, de verbor. cum praepos. com- 4“ Tra Dei adversus nostra peccata effun- 
pos. usu, 1838, III. p. 6 f.; comp. Luke ix. ditur in ipsum, et sic satisfit justitiae Dei,” 


CHAP. XXVII., 47, 48. 509 


ment,’ is, as in the case of the agony in Gethsemane, to go farther than we 
are warranted in doing by the New Testament view of the atoning death of 
Christ, the vicarious character of which is not to be regarded as consisting 
in an objective and actual equivalent. Comp. remarks after xxvi. 46. 
Others, again, have assumed that Jesus, though quoting only the opening 
words of Ps. xxii, had the whole psalm in view, including, therefore, the 
comforting words with which it concludes (Paulus, Gratz, de Wette, Bleek).? 
This, however, besides being somewhat arbitrary, gives rise to the incon- 
gruity of introducing the element of reflection where only pure feeling pre- 
vailed, as we see exemplified by Hofmann,* who, in accordance with his 
view that Jesus was abandoned to the mercies of an ungodly world, substi- 
tutes a secondary thought (‘‘request for the so long delayed deliverance 
through death”) for the plain and direct sense of the words. The authen- 
ticity of our Lord’s exclamation, which the author of the Wolfenbiittel Frag- 
ments has singularly misconstrued (in describing it as the cry of despair over 
a lost cause), is denied by Strauss (who speaks of Ps. xxii. as having served 
the purpose of a programme of Christ’s passion), while it is strongly ques- 
tioned by Keim, partly on account of Ps. xxii. and partly because he thinks 
that the subsequent accompanying narrative is clearly (?) of the nature of a 
fictitious legend. But legend would hardly have put the language of despair 
into the mouth of the dying Redeemer, and certainly there is nothing in the 
witticisms that follow to warrant the idea that we have here one legend 
upon another.—ivar:| the momentary but agonizing feeling that He is aban- 
doned by God, impels Him to ask what the divine object of this may be. He 
doubtless knew this already, but the pangs of death had overpowered Him (2 
Cor, xiii. 4),—a passing anomaly as regards the spirit that uniformly char- 
acterized the prayers of Jesus. — éyxataAeizw] means: to abandon any one 
to utter helplessness. * 

Ver. 47. A heartless Jewish witticism founded upon a silly malicious per- 
version of the words 7/, 7A/, and not a misunderstanding of their meaning 
on the part of the Roman soldiers (Euthymius Zigabenus), or illiterate Jews 
(Theophylact, Erasmus, Olshausen, Lange), or Hellenists (Grotius), for the 
whole context introduces us to one scene after another of envenomed 
mockery ; see ver. 49. —oiroc] that one there! pointing Him out among the 
three who were being crucified. 

Ver. 48 f. A touch of sympathy on the part of some one who had been 
moved by the painful cry of Jesus, and who would fain relieve Him by 
reaching Him a cordial. What a contrast to this in ver. 49! According to 
John xix. 28, Jesus expressly intimated that he was thirsty. Mark xv. 3 
makes it appear that the person who reached the drink to Jesus was also one 
of those who were mocking Him, a discrepancy which we should make no 


“the anger of God against our sins is 2 Comp. Schleiermacher, Glaubensl. II. p. 
poured out upon Him, and so He satisfies 141, ed. 4, and Z. J. p. 457. 
the justice of God,” Melanchthon, comp. 3 Schriftbew. II. 1, p. 309. 
Luther on Ps. xxii., Calvin, Quenstedt. 4Comp. 2 Cor. iv. 9; Acts ii. 27; Heb. 


1 Késtlin in the Jahrb. f. D. Theol. TI. 1, xiii. 5; Plat. Conv. p. 179 A; Dem. p. 158, 
p. 125, and Weiss himself. 10, ad. ; Ecclus. iii. 16, vii. 30, ix. 10. 


510 THE GOSPEL OF MATTHEW. 


attempt to reconcile, and in which we can have no difficulty in detecting 
traces of a more corrupt tradition. Luke omits this incident altogether, 
though in xxiii. 36 he states that by way of mocking our Lord the soldiers 
offered Him the posea just before the darkness came on. Strauss takes ad- 
vantage of these discrepancies so as to make it appear that they are but 
different applications of the prediction contained in Ps. lxix., without, how- 
ever, disputing the fact that drink had been given to Jesus on two different 
occasions.— d£ove] poscae, sour wine, the ordinary drink of the Roman soldiers. * 
— dec] stop! don’t give Him anything to drink! we want to see whether 
Elias whom He is invoking as His deliverer will come to His help, which help 
you would render unnecessary by giving Him drink. — épyera] placed first 
for sake of emphasis : whether he is coming, does not fail coming ! 

Ver. 50. Ilda] refers to ver. 46. What did Jesus cry in this instance ? 
See John xix. 30, from which Luke xxiii. 46 diverges somewhat, contain- 
ing, in fact, an explanatory addition to the account of the great closing 
scene, that is evidently borrowed from Ps. xxxi. 6. — adjKe 76 Tveipa] 7.€., 
He died.* There is no question here of a separating of the zveiua from the 
woyh.2 The theory of a merely apparent death (Bahrdt, Venturini, Paulus) is 
so decidedly at variance with the predictions of Jesus Himself regarding His 
end, as well as with the whole testimony of the Gospel, is: so utterly de- 
structive of the fundamental idea of the resurrection, undermines so com- 
pletely the whole groundwork of the redemption brought about by Christ, 
is so inconsistent with the accumulated testimony of centuries as furnished 
by the very existence of the church itself, which is based upon the facts of 
the death and the resurrection of Jesus, and requires such a remarkable series 
of other theories and assumptions of an extraordinary and supernatural 
character in order to explain duly authenticated facts regarding Christ’s ap- 
pearance and actings after His resurrection,— that, with friends and foes 
alike testifying to the actual death of Jesus, we are bound at once to dismiss 
it as an utterly abortive attempt to get rid of the physiological mystery 
(but see on Luke, Remarks after xxiv. 51) of the resurrection. It is true 
that though those modern critics (Strauss, Weisse, Ewald, Schweizer, 
Schenkel, Volkmar, Scholten, Keim) who deny the literal resurrection of 
Christ’s body, and who suggest various ways of accounting for His alleged 
reappearing again on several occasions, do not dispute the reality of His 
death, their view is nevertheless as much at variance with the whole of the 
New Testament evidence in favor of the resurrection as is the one just 
adverted to.4 

Ver. 51 f. Not an ordinary earthquake, but a supernatural phenomenon, 
as was that of the darkness in ver. 45. — kai idot] ‘‘ Hie wendet sich’s und 
wird gar ein neues Wesen” [at this point the history enters upon a fresh 
stage, and something entirely new appears], Luther. The style of the nar- 


1 Comp. ver. 34 and Wetstein thereon. Wisd. xvi. 14. 

2 See Herod. iy. 190; Eur. Hee. 571: abjKe 3 See in answer to Strdbel, Delitzsch, 
Tvsipa Savacinw ohayy, “he dismissed the Psych. p. 400 f. 
spirit with a deadly slaughter,’ Kypke, I. 4 Comp. xxviii. 10, Rem., and Luke xxiy. 


p. 140; Gen. xxxv. 18; Ecclus. xxxviii. 23 ; 51, Rem. 


CHAP. XXVIT, | ili 511 


rative here is characterized by a simple solemnity, among other indications 
of which we have the frequent recurrence of kai. —rd katarétacna] D290, 
the veil suspended before the holy of holies.1. The rending in two,? of which 
mention is also made by Mark and Luke, was not the effect of the convul- 
sion in nature (which was a subsequent occurrence), but a divine cnueiov, 
accompanying the moment of decease, for the purpose of indicating that in 
this atoning death of Jesus the old dispensation of sacrifices was being done 
away, and free access to the gracious presence of God at the same time re- 
stored.* To treat what is thus a matter of divine symbolism as though it 
were symbolical legend (Schleiermacher, Strauss, Scholten, Keim) is all the 
more unwarrantable that neither in Old Testament prophecy nor in the 
popular beliefs of the Jews do we find anything calculated to suggest the 
formation of any such legend. The influence of legend has operated rather 
in the way of transforming the rending of the veil into an incident of a 
more imposing and startling nature : ‘ swperliminare (the lintel) templi in- 
finitae magnitudinis fractum esse atque divisum,” ‘‘the lintel of the temple 
of immense magnitude was broken and divided.” * The idea underlying 
this legend was that of the destruction of the temple.—What follows is pe- 
culiar to Matthew. The rocks in question were those in the immediate 
neighborhood,. and so also with regard to ra wvyueia. The opening of the graves 
is in like manner to be regarded as divine symbolism, according to which 
the death of Jesus is to be understood as preparing the way for the future 
resurrection of believers to the eternal life of the Messianic kingdom (John 
ili, 14 f., vi. 54). The thing thus signified by the divine sign—a sign suffi- 
ciently intelligible, and possessing all the characteristics of a genuine sym- 
bol’—was so moulded and amplified in the course of tradition that it became 
ultimately transformed into an historical incident : roAAa céuara Tov KeKoun, 
dyiov nyépoy, «.T.2. For a specimen of still further and more extravagant 
amplification of the material in question—material to which Ignatius like- 
wise briefly alludes,* and which he expressly mentions,’—see Hang. Nicod. 
17 ff. This legend respecting the rising of the Old Testament saints (dyiwv) 
is based upon the assumption of the descensus Ohristiad inferos, in the course 
of which Jesus was understood not only to have visited them, but also to 
have secured their resurrection.* But it is quite arbitrary to assume that in 
those who are thus alleged to have risen from their graves we have mere 
“apparitions assuring us of the continued existence of the departed.”” Be- 
sides, the legend regarding the rising of the saints on this occasion is, in 
itself considered, no more incompatible with the idea of Christ being the 
axapyn Tov Kekou. (1 Cor. xv. 20; Col. i. 18) than the raising of Lazarus 
and certain others. See on 1 Cor. xv. 20. It is true that, according to 





1 Ex. xxvi. 31; Lev. xxi. 23; 1 Macc. i. 22; 
Eeclus. xxx. 5; Heb. vi. 19, ix. 8, x. 20. 

*For eis évo, comp. Lucian, Zox. 54; 
Lapith. 44. 

3 Comp. Heb. vi. 19 f., ix. 6 ff., x. 19 f. 

4 Hvang. sec. Hebr. quoted by Jerome. 
See Hilgenfeld, V. 7. extr. can. IV. p. 17. 


5 In opposition to Steinmeyer, p. 226. 

6 Ad Magnes. 9. 

7 Ad Trall. interpol. 9. 

§ Comp. Hv. Nicod. ; Ignatius, ad Trail. lc. 
® Michaelis, Paulus, Kuinoel, Hug, Krab- 


be, p. 505; Steudel, Glaubensl. p. 455; 
Bleek. 


512 THE GOSPEL OF MATTHEW. 
Epiphanius, Origen, Ambrose, Luther, Calovius,’ the dead now in question 
came forth in spiritual bodies and ascended to heaven along with Christ ; 
but with Jerome it is at the same time assumed, in opposition to the terms 
of our passage, that : ‘‘ Von antea resurrexerunt, quam Dominus resurgeret, 
ut esset primogenitus resurrectionis ex mortuis,” ‘* They did not rise before 
the Lord had risen, in order that He might be the firstfruits of the resur- 
rection from the dead.”? In the Acta Pilati as found in Thilo, p. 810, 
Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, the twelve patriarchs, and Noah, are expressly men- 
tioned as being among the number of those who rose from the dead.* 

Ver. 53. Mera r7v éyepowv avtov] is to be taken in an active sense,* yet not 
as though airov were a genitive of the subject (‘‘ postquam eos Jesus in vitam 
restituerat,” Fritzsche, which would be to make the addition of airov some- 
thing like superfluous), but a genitive of the object, in which case it is un- 
necessary to say who it was that raised up Christ. The words are not to be 
connected with éeA36vtec (de Wette, following the majority of the earlier 
expositors), which would involve the absurd idea that those here referred 
to had been lying in their graves alive awaiting the coming of the third 
day ; but, as Heinsius, with eic7Adov. After life was restored they left 
their graves, but only after the resurrection of Jesus did they enter the holy 
city. Up till then they had kept themselves concealed. And this is by no 
means difficult to understand ; for it was only after the resurrection of 
Jesus that their appearing could be of service in the way of bearing testi- 
mony in favor of Him in whose death the power of Hades was supposed to 
have been vanquished, and hence it was only then that their rising found its 
appropriate explanation. — dyiav rédv] is in keeping with the solemnity of 
the entire narrative ; comp. iv. 5. 

Ver. 54. ‘0 dé éxatévtapyoc|® He belonged to the oreipa, ver. 27. — oi per 
avtou Tnpovvtec T. Inc.|] is to be taken as one expression 3; see ver. 35 f. — kai 
ra yevdueva] kai, aS in xxvi. 59, and numerous instances besides, serves to 
conjoin the general with the particular : and what was taking place (generally, 
that is), viz. the various incidents accompanying the death of Jesus (ver. 
46 ff.). The present participle (see the critical remarks) is used with ref- 
erence to things they have been witnessing up till the present moment. *® — 
é¢03970ncav| they were seized with terror, under the impression that all that 
was happening was a manifestation of the wrath of the gods. — Geovd vide] 
in the mouth of heathens can only denote a son of God in the heathen sense 
of the words (hero, demi-god), the sense in which they certainly understood 
them to be used when they heard Jesus accused and mocked. — jv] during 
His life. 

Ver. 55 f. ’"HxoAot3noav] Here, as in ver. 60 and often elsewhere, we have 
the aorist in the relative clause instead of the usual pluperfect. — 7 Mayda- 


1 Comp. also Delitzsch, Psych. p. 414. 

2Comp. also Calyin, and Hofmann, 
Schriftbew. I. 1, p. 492. 

* The names are given somewhat differ- 
ently in the Huang. Nicod. 

4 Ps. cxxxix. 2; Plat. Tim. p.70C; comp. 


é&éyepots, Polyb. ix. 15. 43; avéyepors, Plut. 
Mor. p. 156 B. 

5“ Centurio supplicio praepositus,” ‘a 
centurion in charge of (inflicting) the pun- 
ishment,’’ Seneca, de ira, i. 16 

6 See Kiihner, II. 1, pp. 117, 163, 


CHAP. XXVII., 57, 58. 513 


Anrq| from Magdala (see on xv. 39), comp. Luke viii. 2 ; she is not identical 
with the Mary of John xii. 1 ff.,who again has been confounded with the 
sinner of Luke vii. 36.7 The 82° baa0 is likewise mentioned in Rabbinical 
literature,? though this must not be confounded with x70, a plaiter of 
hair, which the Talmud alleges the mother of Jesus to have been. — 7 roi 
"TaxBov, x.7.A.].the wife of Alphaeus. See on xiii. 55; John xix. 25. 
The mother of Joses is not a different Mary from the mother of James,* 
otherwise we should have had kai 7 roi "Iwo patnp. See also Mark xv. 47, 
Remark. —7 pijrnp tov vidv ZeBed.| Salome. Comp. on xx. 20. In John 
xix. 25 she is designated : 7 adeAgy tiH¢ uyTpo¢ avtov. The mother of Jesus, 
whose presence on this occasion is attested by John, is not mentioned by 
the Synoptists, though at the same time they do not exclude her (in oppo- 
sition to Schenkel, Keim), especially as Matthew and Mark make no express 
reference to any but the women who ministered to the Lord. For this 
reason alone we feel bound to reject the hypothesis of Chrysostom and 
Theophylact, revived by Fritzsche, but refuted so long ago by Euthymius 
Zigabenus,—the hypothesis, namely, that it is the mother of Jesus who is 
meant by Mapia 7 tov Iakeov Kat Iwan uAtnp (xiii. 55).° 

Ver. 57. ‘Owiac dé yevou.] the so-called first or early evening, just before 
the close of the Jewish day.*° —aré ’Apiyad.] belongs to avbpwro¢ rotate. 
Comp. payor ard avatoAdv, li. 1. The other evangelists describe him as a 
member of the Sanhedrim ; an additional reason for supposing him to have 
resided in Jerusalem, — 7/%ev] namely, to the place of execution, as the context 
shows, and not to the praetorium (de Wette, Bleek), to which latter ver. 58 
represents him as going only after his return from the scene of the crucifix- 
ion. <Arimathia, 0°) with the article, 1 Sam. i. 1, the birthplace of 
Samuel,’ and consequently identical with Rama (see on ii. 18); LXX.: 
"Apuatain. —kai avtéc| et ipse, like those women and their sons, ver. 56. — 
padyrevew tie] to be a disciple of any one; see Kypke, II. p. 141 f. Comp. on 
xill. 52. He was a secret follower of Jesus, John xix. 88. 

Ver. 58. According to Roman usage, the bodies of criminals were left 
hanging upon the cross, where they were allowed to decompose and be de- 
voured by birds of prey.* However, should the relatives in any case ask 
the body for the purpose of burying, there was nothing to forbid their 
request being complied with.® — zpoces3.] therefore from the place of exe- 
cution to the praetorium. -— azododjvat To cOua] 76 cOua is Aue not merely to 
the simple style of the narrative, but inits threefold repetition expresses with 
involuntary emphasis the author’s own painful sympathy. dodo. has the 
force of reddi (Vulg.), the thing asked being regarded as the petitioner’s 
own peculiar property. Comp. xxii. 21. 


1 Comp. on xxvi. 6 ff. See also Lightfoot, p. 499. 

2 Hisenmenger, entdeckt. Judenth. I. p. 7See Eusebius, Onom., and Jerome, Zp. 
1K 86, ad Hustoch. epitaph. Paul. p. 678. 

3 Lightfoot, p. 498. § Plaut. mil. glor. ii. 4. 9; Horace, Zp. i. 

4 Ewald, Gesch. Chr. p. 401. 16. 48. 

®So also Hesychius of Jerusalem in ®Ulpian, xviii. 24. 1, de cadav. punit. ; 
Cramer’s Catena, p. 256. _ Hugin the Preyd. Zeitschr. 5, p. 174 ff. 


6 Deut. xxi, 22 f.; Joseph. Bell. iv. 5. 2 


514. THE GOSPEL OF MATTHEW. 


Ver. 59. ‘‘ Jam initia honoris,” ‘‘ Here now is the beginning of honor,” 
Bengel. — owd6v xadapa] with pure (unstained linen) linen, the dative of in- 
strument. Keeping in view the ordinary practice on such occasions, it must 
not be supposed that the reference here is to a dress (Kuinoel, Fritzsche), 
but (comp. Herod. ii. 86) to strips or bands (John xix. 40), in which the 
body was swathed after being washed.’ Matthew makes no mention of 
spices (John xix. 40), but neither does he exclude their use, for he may have 
meant us to understand that, in conformity with the usual practice, they 
would be put in, as matter of course, when the body was wrapped up (in 
opposition to Strauss, de Wette, Keim). Mark xvi. 1 and Luke’ xxiii. 56 
represent the putting in of the spices as something intended to be done after 
the burial. This, however, is in no way inconsistent with the statement of 
John, for there is no reason why the women may not have supplemented 
with a subsequent and more careful dressing of the body (ddeipwow, Mark 
xvi. 1) what had been done imperfectly, because somewhat hurriedly, by 
Joseph and (see John xix. 39) Nicodemus. 

Ver. 60. °O éAaréuqoev] Aorist, as in ver. 55.—The other evangelists say 
nothing about the grave having belonged to Joseph ; John xix. 42 rather gives 
us to understand that, owing to the necessary despatch, it was made choice 
of from its being close at hand. We thus see that Matthew’s account is un- 
supported by the earlier testimony of Mark on the one hand, and the later 
testimony of Luke and John on the other. This, however, only goes to 
confirm the view that in Matthew we have a later amplification of the tradi- 
tion which was expunged again by Luke and John, for this latter at least 
would scarcely have left unnoticed the devotion evinced by Joseph in thus 
giving up his own tomb, and yet it is John who distinctly alleges a different 
reason altogether for the choice of the grave. The ordinary supposition, 
that Matthew’s account is intended to supplement those of the other evange- 
lists, fails to meet the exigencies of the case, especially in regard to John, 
on whom so tender a feature in connection with the burial would doubtless 
have made too deep an impression to admit of his passing it over in silence. 
—Asanew grave was calculated to do honor to Jesus (comp. on John as 
above), the circumstance that this one had not been previously used may 
have gone far to determine the choice, so that there is no ground for sup- 
posing that what is said with reference to this has been added without his- 
torical warrant (Strauss, Scholten). — év rj rérpa] The article is to be under- 
stood as indicating a rocky place just at hand. — rh 3bpa].* In Rabbinical 
phraseology the stone used for this purpose is called 591, a roller.? Such a 
mode of stopping up graves is met with even in the present day. * 

Ver. 61. "Hv dé éxei] present at the burial. — 7% GAAy Map.] see ver. 56. 
The article is wanting only in A D*, and should be maintained, Wieseler® 
notwithstanding. Its omission in the case of A may be traced to the reading 
4 Iwofd, Which this ms. has at Mark xy. 47. Wieseler approves of this 


1 Comp. Wetstein. 3 See Paulus, exeget. Handb. III. p. 819. 
2 Comp. Hom. Od. ix. 243: mérpny érédyke 4 Strauss, Sinai u. Golgatha, p. 205. 
Svpyov, “he placed a huge rock against 5 Chronol, Synops. p. 427. 


the door-way.”’ 


CHAP. XXVII., 62—65. old 


reading, and holds the Mary of our text to be the wife or daughter of 
Joseph of Arimathea. But see remark on Mark xv. 47. — kadfyevat, x.7.A. | 
unoccupied, absorbed in grief.’ 

Ver. 62. "Hric éort pera tHv rapack.] which follows the day of preparation, 
i.e., on Saturday. For rapackeiy is used to designate the day that immedi- 
ately precedes the Sabbath (as in the present instance) or any of the feast 
days. Comp. on John xix. 14. According to the Synoptists, the rapackety 
of the Sabbath happened to coincide this year with the first day of the feast, 
which might also properly enough be designated céfBarov (Lev. xxiii. 11, 
15),—this latter circumstance being, according to Wieseler,? the reason 
why Matthew did not prefer the simpler and more obvious expression #rvc 
éorl caBBarov ; an expression which, when used in connection with the days 
of the Passover week, was liable to be misunderstood. But Matthew had 
already spoken so definitely of the first day of the feast as that on which 
Jesus was crucified (see xxvi. 17—xxvii. 1), that he had no cause to apprehend 
any misunderstanding of his words had he chosen to write rie gor? 043 Barov. 
But as little does that precise statement regarding the day permit us to 
suppose that the expression in question has been made to turn on the diver- 
gent narrative of John (in opposition to de Wette). The most natural ex- 
planation of the peculiar phraselogy : jri¢ éori wera r. rapack., is to be found 
in that Christian usage according to which the rapaoxeby (i.e., the xpood3 Barov 
Mark xv. 42) has come to be the recognized designation for the Friday of 
the crucifixion. Michaelis, Paulus, Kuinoel suppose that it is the part of 
Friday after sunset that is intended, by which time, therefore, the Sabbath 
had begun. This, however, is distinctly precluded by 7% ératpiov. 

Ver. 63. "Eurgodnuev| we have remembered, it has just occurred to us, the 
sense being purely that of the aorist and not of the perfect (in opposition to 
de Wette). — éxeivog 6 rAdvoc] that deceiver (2 Cor. vi. 8), impostor.2 With- 
out once mentioning His name, they contemptuously allude to Him as one 
now removed to a distance, as got rid of by death. This is a sense in which 
éxevvoc is frequently used by Greek authors. * — éyeipoua:| present ; marking the 
confidence with which he affirmed it. 

Ver. 64. Kai éora] is more lively and natural when not taken as depend- 
ent on y#xore. The Vulgate renders correctly : et erit. —7 écyarn rAdvy] the 
last error (see on Eph. iv. 14), that, namely, which would gain ground 
among the credulous masses, through those who might steal away the body 
of Jesus, pretending that He had risen from the dead. — ri¢ rpéryc] which 
found acceptance with the multitude through giving out and encouraging 
others to give out that He was the Messiah. — yeipwr] worse, i.e., more fatal 
to public order and security, etc.* 

Ver. 65 f. Pilate’s reply is sharp and peremptory. 
Luther, Vatablus, Wolf, Paulus, de Wette, Keim, Steinmeyer, éyere is to be 
taken as an imperative, habetote :° ye shall have a watch! For if it be taken as 





éyete kovoTwdiav| with 


1 Comp. Nagelsbach on Hom. J. i. 134. ® For the use of this expression, comp. 
2 Synops. p. 417. xii. 45 ; 2 Sam, xiii. 15. 
8 Justin, c. Zr. 69: AaomAdvos. 6 Comp. Xen. Cyrop. viii. 7. 11; Mark ix. 


4Schoem. ad Js. p. 177; Ellendt, Zea. 50, xi. 22; Soph. Phil. 778. 
Soph. I. p. 559. 


516 THE GOSPEL OF MATTHEW. 


an indicative, as is generally done in conformity with the Vulgate, we must 
not suppose that the reference is to Roman soldiers (Grotius, Fritzsche), for 
the Sanhedrim had not any such placed at their disposal, not even to the de- 
tachment that guarded the cross (Kuinoel), for its duties were now over, but 
simply to the ordinary temple guards. But it is evident from xxviii. 14 that 
it was not these latter who were set to watch the grave. This duty was 
assigned to a company of Roman soldiers, which company the Acta Pil. mag- 
nifies into a cohort. — ¢ oidare] as, by such meansas, ye know how to prevent 
at, 7.e., in the best way youcan. The idea : ‘‘vereor autem, ut satis com- 
munire illud possitis” (Fritzsche), is foreign to the text. — pera rij¢ kovaTwdiac | 
belongs to jodaric. tr. Tad.; they secured the grave by means of? the watch, 
which they posted in front of it. The intervening ogpayic. 7. Ai. is to be 
understood as having preceded the jogad. tr. 7. wera t. kovor : after they had 
sealed the stone. To connect pera t. kovotwd. with odpayic. (Chrysostom) 
would result either in the feeble and somewhat inappropriate idea that the 
watch had helped them with the sealing (Bleek), or in the harsh and unnec- 
essary assumption that our expression is anabbreviation for era rod zpood- 
elvat THY Kovotwdiav (Fritzsche). —od@payic.]? The sealing was effected by 
stretching a cord across the stone at the mouth of the sepulchre, and then 
fastening it to the rock at either end by means of sealing-clay ;? or if the 
stone at the door happened to be fastened with a cross-beam, this latter was 
sealed to the rock.* 


Remarxr.—As it is certain that Jesus cannot have predicted His resurrection 
in any explicit or intelligible manner even to His own disciples ; as, moreover, 
it is impossible to suppose that the women who visited the grave on the resur- 
rection morning could have contemplated embalming the body, or would have 
concerned themselves merely about how the stone was to be rolled away, if they 
had been aware that a watch had been set, and that the grave had been sealed ; 
and finally, as the supposition that Pilate complied with the request for a guard, 
or at all events, that the members of the Sanhedrim so little understood their 
own interest as both to leave the body of Jesus in the hands of His followers 
instead of taking possession of it themselves, and to bribe the soldiers to give 
false testimony instead of duly calling them to account, as they might have 
done, for their culpable neglect, is in the highest degree improbable, just as 
much so as the idea that the procurator would be likely to take no notice of a der- 
eliction of duty on the part of his own soldiers, who, by maintaining the truth 
of a very stupid fabrication, would only be proclaiming how much they them- 
selves were to blame in the matter : it follows that the story about the watching 
of the grave—-a story which is further disproved by the fact that nowhere in the 
discussions belonging to the apostolic age do we find any reference confirmatory 
or otherwise to the alleged stealing of the body—must be referred to the category of 
unhistorical legend. And a clue to the origin of this legend is furnished by the 
evangelist himself in mentioning the rumor about the stealing of the body,—a 
rumor emanating to all appearance from a Jewish source, and circulated with 


1 Stallbaum, ad Plat. Rep. p. 530 D. mar, Beobacht. II. p. 467. 
2 Comp. Dan. vi. 17. 4 Strauss, Sinat und Golgatha, p. 205. 
3 Paulsen, Regier. d. Morgenl. p. 298; Har- 


CHAP. XXVII. BLY 


the hostile intention of disproving the resurrection of Jesus (Paulus, eveg. 
Handb, III. p. 837 ff.: Strauss, IT. p. 562 ff.; Schleiermacher, L. J. p. 458 ff.; 
Weisse, Ewald, Hase, Bleek, Keim, Scholten, Hilgenfeld). The arguments ad- 
vanced by Hug in the Freyburg. Zeitschr. 1831, 3, p. 184 ff.; 5, p. 80 ff.; Kui- 
noel, Hofmann, Krabbe, Ebrard, Lange, Riggenbach, Steinmeyer, against the 
supposition of a legend, resolve themselves into arbitrary assumptions and 
foreign importations which simply leave the matter as historically incomprehen- 
sible as ever. The same thing may be said with regard to the emendation 
which Olshausen takes the liberty of introducing, according to which it is made 
to appear that the Sanhedrim did not act in their corporate capacity, but that 
the affair was managed simply on the authority of Caiaphas alone. Still the 
unhistorical character of the story by no means justifies the assumption of an 
interpolation (in opposition to Stroth in Eichhorn’s Repert. IX. p. 141),—an in- 
terpolation, too, that would have had to be introduced into three different pas- 
Sages (xxvil. 62, 66, xxviii. 4, 11 ff.); yet one can understand how this apocry- 
phal story should have most readily engrafted itself specially and exclusively 
upon the Gospel of Matthew, a Gospel originating in Judaeo-Christian circles, 
and haying, by this time, the more developed form in which it has come down 
tous. For a further amplification of the legend, see Hv. Nicod. 14. 


518 THE GOSPEL OF MATTHEW. 


CHAPTER XXVIII. 


Ver. 2. a0 T. Qipac] is wanting in B D 8, 60, 84, Vulg. It. Or. Dion. De- 
leted by Lachm. and Tisch. Exegetical addition, which many witnesses have 
supplemented still further by adding tov prvyweiov (Mark xvi. 3).—Ver. 6. 
6 Kvpioc] is wanting, no doubt, only in B X&, 33, 102, Copt. Aeth. Arm. Ar.Pe!- 
one Cod. of the It. Or.i=t- Chrys.; but, with Tisch., it is to be condemned. 
This designation is foreign to Matth., while as ‘‘ gloriosa appellatio” (Bengel) 
it was more liable to be inserted than omitted. — Ver. 8. éeA9.] Tisch.: a7e/0., 
following BC L 8, 33, 69, 124. Correctly ; the more significant reading of the 
Received text is derived from Mark. — Ver. 9. Before ka? idov the Received text 
inserts : Ge dé ExopetovTo drayyeidat Toi¢g wabnraic aitov. No such clause is found 
in BD 8, min. Syr. Ar.Po!: Perss. Copt. Arm. Vulg. Sax. It. Or. Eus. Jer. Aug, 
Defended by Griesb. Matth. Fritzsche, Scholz, Bornem. Schol. in Lue. p. xxxix.); 
condemned by Mill, Bengel, Gersd., Schulz, Rinck, Lachm., Tisch. There 
would be nothing feeble or awkward about the wordsif thus inserted, on, the 
contrary, the effect would be somewhat solemn (see Bornem.); but seeing that 
they are wanting in witnesses so ancient and so important, and seeing that o¢ 
is not found in this sense anywhere else in Matth. (other grammatical grounds 
mentioned by Gersd. are untenable), there is reason to suspect that they are 
an early addition for the sake of greater precision. — Ver. 11. For azjyy. read, 
with Tisch. 8, dvnyy., though only in accordance with D &, Or. Chrys. The 
Received reading is taken from ver. 10, while dvayyéAAew occurs nowhere else 
in Matthew. —- Ver. 14. éx? rov 7ny.] Lachm.: io tod 7y., following B D, 59, 
Vulg. It. But this is an explanatory correction in consequence of not catching 
the sense, — Ver. 15. Lachm. inserts juépac after o7uepov, in accordance with 
BDL. Correctly ; as Matth. does not add jép. in any other instance (xi. 23, 
xxvil. 8), it was more natural for the transcriber to omit than to insert it. — 
Ver. 17.avT@] is wanting in BD ®&, 33, 102, Vulg. It. Chrys. Aug. Deleted by 
Lachm. and Tisch. 8. A somewhat common addition, for which other mss. 
(min.) have aivév. — Ver. 19. After wopev#. Elz. inserts ody, which is bracketed 
by Lachm. and deleted by Matth. and Tisch. Added as a connecting particle, 
but wanting in very important witnesses, while other and less important ones 
have viv. 


Ver. 1. On the various ways of viewing and interpreting the story of the 
resurrection, see, asregards their critical aspect, Keim, III. p. 527 ff.; and 
on the apologetic side, consult Steinmeyer, Apolog. Beitr. III. 1871. — owe, 
6& oaBBatov| but-late on the Sabbath, means neither . . . after the close of the 
Sabbath,’ nor : after the close of the week ;? for dé, sero, with a defining geni- 
tive (without which it occurs nowhere else in the New Testament) always 


1QOlshausen, de Wette, Baumgarten- 2 Severus of Antioch, Euthymius Ziga- 
Crusius, Ewald, Bleek. benus, Grotius, Wieseler, p. 425. 


CHAP. “XX VELT., ih 519 
denotes the lateness of the period thus specified and still current (ra terevtaia 
rovrwv, Euthymius Zigabenus).* Take the following as examples of this 
usage from classical authors. Hence by : late on the Sabbath, we are not 
to suppose Saturday evening to be intended,—any such misunderstand- 
ing being precluded both by the nature of the expression made use of, 
an expression by no means synonymous with the usual diac yevouévyc (in 
opposition to Keim), and by what is still further specified immediately 
after,—but far on in the Saturday night, after midnight, toward daybreak 
on Sunday, in conformity with the civil mode of reckoning, according 
to which the ordinary day was understood to extend from sunrise till 
sunrise again. Lightfoot, comparing the Rabbinical expression *p’52 
SlW, aptly observes : ‘‘ owé totam noctem denotat.”*® Consequently the point 
of time mentioned here is substantially identical with that given in Luke 
XXlv. 1: 7H wid TOv caBBatwv spSpov Badéoc, and in John xx. 1: tH wa Tov 
ca33. mpwt oKxotiag éte ovanc ; While, on the other hand, Mark xvi. 2 repre- 
sents the sunas already risen. * — rj éridwok. ei¢ wiav caBBatwv| when it was dawn- 
ing toward Sunday, i.e., as the light was beginning to appear on the morning 
of Sunday. Understand jjuépa after éxigwon. 3 and for éripdoxer 7) 7uépa, Comp. 
Herod. iii. 86 : dy’ juépy diadwoxoton, also ix. 45. The participial expression 
without the juépa is similar to 7 éxvovca, and the like.* Keim supposes the even- 
ing to be intended, since, according to the Jewish mode of reckoning, the day 
began with the rising of:the stars or the lighting of lamps, so that the mean- 
ing of our passage would be as follows : ‘‘ In the evening after six o'clock, just 
when the stars were beginning to twinkle.” © But to say nothing of the startling 
discrepancy that would thus arise between Matthew and the other evangelists, 
we would be under the necessity, according to Luke xxili. 54 (see on the pas- 
sage), of understanding the words immediately following as simply equiva- 
lent to : 7H wig caB3atov éxipwckotay.’ Nor, if we adopt Keim’s interpretation, 
is it at all clear what substantive should be understood along with ry éxiduo. 
Ewald* unwarrantably supplies éorépa, and, like Keim, supposes the refer- 
ence to be to the evening lighting of the lamps, though he is inclined to think 
that Matthew intended summarily to include in his statement what the wom- 
en did on Saturday evening and early on Sunday, a view which finds no 
support whatever in the text ; as for the intention to embalm the body, there 
is no trace of such a thing in Matthew. Lastly, to suppose that in framing 
his statement as to the time here in question, the author of our revised Gos- 
pel has had recourse to a combination of Mark xvi. 1 and 2 (Weiss), is to giye 


1 Comp. in general, Kriiger, § xlvii. 10. 4; 
Kihner, IT. 1, p. 292. 

2Xen. Hist. ii. 1.14; Thuc. iv. 93. 1: rijs 
nuepas OWE; Dem. p. 541, wt: ope tis wpas 
éytyvero;. Luc. Dem. enc. 14, and de morte 
Peregr. 21: oe ris nAckias. 

3 Comp. so early a writer as Augustine, 
de cons. ev. 2A. 

4 For oWé, comp. Ammonius: éorépa pév 
yap cory 7 meTa THY SUowW TOV HALov Mpa OWE 
6& meta TOAD THs Sicews, ‘evening is the 
time after the setting of the sun ; but Zate is 


the time after the sun has been long set.” 

5 Ktihner, II. 1, p. 228. 

6 This idea of Keim’s about the twinkling 
of the stars is an importation ; for the ex- 
pression émupooxer, as applied to the even- 
ing, has reference only to the ordinary 
domestic lighting of the lamps. See in par- 
ticular, Lightfoot on Luke xxiii. 54. 

7 Comp. caBBarov émupacker, Hv. Nicod. 12, 
p. 600, Thilo’s edition. 

8 Apost. Zeit. p. 82. 


520 THE GOSPEL OF MATTHEW. 


him but little credit for literary skill ; for instead of taking the trouble to 
form any such combination, he had only to take Mark’s two statements and 
place the one after the other, thus : dsayevouévov tov caBBarov, Aiav rpwi THe 
jude caBBdrwv. But so far from that, he has proceeded in entire indepen- 
dence of Mark. — The expression pia caffarwy corresponds exactly to the 
Rabbinical mode of designating the days of the week : D3IW2 TS, Sunday; 
HIwWI Ww, Monday ; awa wow, Tuesday, and so on.’ Observe that 
ca33ara denotes, in the first instance, Sabbath, and then week ; and similar- 
ly, that the juépa to be understood with ériwox. is to be taken in the sense 
of day light.? —7 adAn Mapia]| as in xxvii. 56. —In John xx. 1 only Mary 
Magdalene is mentioned, whereas in the Synoptists we have an amplified 
version of the tradition as regards the number of the women, Matthew men- 
tioning two, Mark three (Salome), while Luke (xxiv. 10) gives us to under- 
stand that, in addition to the two Marys and Joanna, whom he specially 
names, there were several others. In dealing with such discrepancies in the 
tradition we should beware of seeking to coerce the different narratives into 
harmony with one another, which can never be done without prejudice to their 
respective authors. We see an illustration of this in the supposition that Mary 
Magdalene came jirst of all to the grave, and then hastened back to the city 
to inform Peter of what had taken place, and that during her absence Mary 
the mother of James, Joanna, Salome, and the other women arrived (Ols- 
hausen, Ebrard). Comp. on John xx. 1. The same thing is exemplified by 
the other view, that Mary Magdalene went to the grave along with the rest 
of the women, but that on the way back she outran the others, etc.? — Jewp7y- 
cat tov Tagov| to look at the grave; according to Mark and Luke, to anoint 
the body. This latter statement is the more original and more correct of the 
two, though Matthew could not consistently adopt it after what he had said 
about the sealing and watching of the grave. 

Ver. 2. It is wrong to take the aorists in a pluperfect sense (Castalio, 
Kuinoel, Kern, Ebrard), or to conceive of the action of the 7A¥e as not yet com- 
pleted (de Wette). Matthew represents what is here recorded as taking place 
in presence of the women (7Ae.. . Sewpyoa.. . Kai idov), whose attention, how- 
ever, had been so much occupied with the accompanying phenomena, that they 
did not not observe (vv. 5, 6) the circumstance itself of our Lord’s emerging 
from the grave (which, besides, must have been invisible to the outward eye, 
owing to the nature of the body He had now assumed, comp. on ver. 17). 
The other evangelists make no mention of this (legendary) supernatural and 
visible rolling away of the stone ; and, though differing as to the number of 
the angels, they agree in representing them as having appeared inside the 
grave. Here, if anywhere, however, amid so much that is supernatural, 
must we be prepared to expect divergent accounts of what took place, above 
all in regard to the angelic manifestations, which are matters depending on 
individual observation and experience (comp. on John xx. 12), and not the 


1 See Lightfoot, p. 500. the divergent narratives, see Griesbach, 
2 John ix. 4, xi. 6; Rom. xiii. 12; 1 Thess. Opusc. Il. p. 241 ff. ; Strauss, II. p. 570 ff.; 
Wino: Wieseler, p. 425 ff. 


8 For the various attempts to harmonize 


CHAP. XXVIII., 3—%. 521 
objective perceptions of impartial and disinterested spectators. — yap] 
assigning the reason for the violent earthquake which, as a divine cyyeiov, 
formed an appropriate accompaniment to this miraculous angelic manifes- 
tation. —x. éxa@0yro, «.7.2.] as the heaven-sent guardian and interpreter of 
the empty tomb. 

Ver. 3 f. ‘H idéa abroi] his appearance, his outward aspect, found nowhere 
else in the New Testament, though occurring in Dan. i. 15, 2 Mace. iii. 16, 
and frequently in classical authors." The appearance of the countenance is 
meant ; see what follows. Comp. xvii. 2.—dé¢ dotpar#] not: as having 
the jform, but as shining with the brightness of lightning.? For the white 
raiment, comp. 2 Macc. xi. 8; Actsi. 10. The sentinels were couvulsed 
(éceio3noav, 3 Esdr, iv. 36) with terror at the sight of the angel (airov), and 
became as powerless as though they had been dead. The circumstance of 
these latter being mentioned again at this point is in strict keeping with 
the connection of Matthew’s narrative. 

Ver. 5 f. ’Aroxpueic] said in view of the terrifying effect which he saw 
was being produced upon the women by what was taking place. Comp. on 
xi. 25. — pi) goBeicte bueic] tyeic is neither to be understood as a vocative (0 
vos!), nor to be referred to what follows (both of which Fritzsche has sug- 
gested); but, as the simplicity of the address and a due regard to the sense 
require, is to be taken thus: ye should not be afraid, iuei¢ being thus re- 
garded as forming a contrast to the sentinels, who are paralyzed with terror. 
To say that no particular emphasis ever rests upon the personal pronoun (de 
Wette) is to say what, as regards the whole of the New Testament, is simply 
not the case (instance also Mark xiii. 9; Acts vill. 24). —oida yap, x.r.A.] 
Ground of the reassuring terms in which the angel addresses them ; he 
knows the loving purpose for which they are come, and what joyful news he 
has to tell them ! 

Ver. 7. Ipoayer] he isin the act of going before you to Galilee ; dz: is 
recitative.* Accordingly iuac and decode refer to the disciples (comp. Xxxvi. 
32), not to the women as well, who, in fact, saw Jesus forthwith ; and see ver. 
10. For the meeting itself, which is here promised, see ver. 16 ff. — éxei] 
therefore not previously in Jerusalem or anywhere else in Judaea. Be- 
tween what is here stated and the narratives of Luke and John there is a 
manifest and irreconcilable difference.4 Observe, moreover, the édypecve ; 
on no earlier occasion than that of their meeting in Galilee were they to be 
Savored with a sight of Him. — eizov ipiv] I have told you it, in the sense of : 
take this as my intimation of the fact (see on John vi. 36), thus conjoining 
with the announcement a hint carefully to note how certainly it will be 
verified by the result. It is wrong, therefore, to suppose that for eizov we 


1 On the relation of this term to «fos, see 
Stallbaum, ad Plat. Rep. p. 596 A, and 
Parmen. p. 128 E; and comp. Ameis on 
Hom. Od, ix. 508, Appendix. 

2Comp. Plat. Phaedr. p. 254 B: el8ov rhv 
éWiv actpantovear, ‘they beheld the gleam- 
ing countenance.” 

3 Bengel correctly observes: ‘ Verba dis- 


cipulis dicenda se porrigunt usque ad vide- 
bitis,’ ‘‘the message to the disciples ex- 
tends as far as ye shall see.” 

4 Jn the Stud. u. AKrit. 1869, p. 532 ff., Graf 
still tries in vain to make outa case in 
favor of assuming, as matter of course, 
the expiry of the festival period before the 
mpoayer and ow, 


522 THE GOSPEL OF MATTHEW. 


should read eizev, after Mark xvi. 7 (Maldonatus, Michaelis), in which case 
some assume an error in translation ;’ others, an error on the part of the 
transcriber (Scholten) ; and others, again, an erroneous use of Mark (Schneck- 
enburger, Holtzmann). The idod, elzov iyiv is here peculiar to Matthew. 

Ver. 8. Mera ¢6fov, é¢’ oi¢ eidov mapaddéoe’ peta yapac dé, id’ ol¢ FKovoav 
evayyedtow, ‘with fear, because of the incredible things which they saw ; 
with joy, because of the good news which they heard,” Euthymius Zigabe- 
nus. —ueyadyc| applying to both substantives. For similar instances of the 
mingling of fear with joy,? consult Wetstein.? 

Ver. 9. On seeing the strange and superhuman appearance presented by 
the risen Lord, the women are so filled with consternation (u7 goSeiobe, ver. 
10) that they take hold of His feet in a suppliant attitude (éxpar. abrod r. 
modac), and testify their submission and reverence by the act of zpockbryacce. 

Ver. 10. M7 goBeiode imdyere, axayy.] Asyndeton, the matter being press- 
ing, urgent. — roi¢ adeAdoic wou] He thus designates His disciples,® not pic 
tyuqv avrov (Kuthymius Zigabenus), for which there was no occasion, but in 
view of that conception of Him asa superhuman being which had so pro- 
foundly impressed the women prostrate at His feet. — iva] does not state the 
purport of the order involved in dzajy. (de Wette ; there is nothing 
whatever of the nature of an order about azay.), but the idea is : take word 
to my brethren (namely, about my resurrection, about your having seen me, 
about my having spoken to you, and what I said), in order that (as soon as 
hey receive these tidings from you) they may proceed to Galilee, xxvi. 32. 
—kakei pe dpovrac] is not to be regarded as dependent on iva, but : and there 
they shall see me. This repetition of the directions about going to Galilee 
(ver. 7), to which latter our evangelist gives considerable prominence as the 
scene of the new reunion (ver. 16 ff.), cannot be characterized as superfluous 
(de Wette, Bruno Bauer), or even as poor and meaningless (Keim), betraying 
the hand of a later editor, but is intended to be express and emphatic ; comp. 
Steinmeyer. With the exception of John xxi., the other canonical Gospels, 
in which, however, we cannot include the spurious conclusion of Mark, 
make no mention of any appearance of the risen Lord in Galilee ; according 
to John xx., Jesus remained at least eight days in Jerusalem, as did also 
His disciples, to whom He there manifested Himself on two occasions, though 
it would appear from John xxi. that the third manifestation took place in 
Galilee, while Luke, on the other hand (xxiv. 49 ; Acts i. 4, xili. 31), ea- 
cludes Galilee altogether, just as Matthew excludes Judaea, To harmonize 
these divergent accounts is impossible ;° and, with regard to the account of 
Matthew in particular, it may be observed that it is so far from assuming the 
manifestations to the disciples in Judaea as having previously occurred (in 
opposition to Augustine, Olshausen, Krabbe, Ebrard, Lange), that it clearly 


1 Bolten, Eichhorn, Buslay, de ling. orig. quam discipuli,” ‘‘ before His passion, Jesus 


ev. M. p. 67. was worshipped by others, strangers, rather 
2 Virg. Aen. i. 514, xi. 807, al. than by His disciples.” 
3 KO6ster in the Stud. u. AKrit. 1862, p. 351. 5 Comp. on John xx. 17; Justin, ¢. 77. 106, 
4Bengel says correctly: “Jesum ante 6 Strauss, II, p. 558 ff. ; Holtzmann, p. 500 


passionem alii potius alieniores adorarunt f.; Keim. 


CHAP. XX VILL. LO: 520 


intends the meeting with the eleven, ver. 16 ff., as the jirst appearance to 
those latter, and as the one that had been promised by the angel, ver. 7, 
and by Jesus Himself, ver. 10. From those divergent accounts, however, it 
may be fairly inferred that the tradition regarding the appearances of the 
risen Lord to His disciples assumed a threefold shape : (1) the purely Gali- 
laean, which is that adopted by Matthew ; (2) the purely Judaean, which is 
that of Luke, and also of John with the supplementary ch. xxi. left out ; (38 
the combined form in which the appearances both in Galilee and Judaea 
are embraced, which is that of John with the supplementary chapter 
in question included. That Jesus appeared to the disciples both in Jeru- 
salem and in Galilee as well might be already deduced as a legitimate 
historical inference from the fact of a distinct Judaean and Galilaean tradi- 
tion having been current ; but the matter is placed beyond a doubt by John, 
if, as we are entitled to assume, the apostle is to be regarded as the author 
of ch. xxi. The next step, of course, is to regard it as an ascertained histor- 
ical fact that the appearances in Judaea preceded those in Galilee ; though, 
at the same time, it should not be forgotten that Matthew's account is not 
merely vague and concise (Bleek), but that it, in fact, ignores the appearances 
in Judaea altogether’ entirely excludes them as being unsuited to the con- 
nection.? Now, as this is inconceivable in the case of Matthew the apostle, 
we are bound to infer from our narrative that this is another of those pas- 
sages in our Gospel which show traces of other than apostolic authorship. 
See Introd. § 2. f 


Remarxk.—It is evident from 1 Cor. xv. 5 ff. that, even taking the narratives 
of all the evangelists together, we would have but an imperfect enumeration of 
the appearances of Jesus, subsequent to His resurrection, Matthew’s account 
being the most deficient of any. Withregard to the appearances themselves, 
modern criticism, discarding the idea that the death was only apparent (see on 
xxvii. 50), has treated them partly as subjective creations, either of the intellect 
(Strauss, Scholten), in its efforts to reconcile the Messianic prophecies and the 
belief in the Messiah with the fact of His death, or of ecstatic vision (Baur, 
Strauss,’ 1864; Holsten, Ewald), and therefore as mere mental phenomena 
which came to be embodied in certain objective incidents. There are those 
again who, attributing the appearances in question to some objective influence 
emanating from Christ Himself, have felt constrained to regard them as real 
manifestations of His person in the glorified form (Schenkel) in which it emerged 
from out of death (not from the grave),—a view in which Weisse, Keim, 


1 Rud. Hofmann (de Berg Galilda, 1856), 
following certain early expositors, nas at- 
tempted to explain the discrepancies be- 
tween the various narratives by maintain- 
ing that 7 TadvAoia, Matt. xxviii., is not the 
country put a mountain of this name, name- 
ly, the northmost of the three peaks of the 
Mount of Olives. But nowhere in the New 
Testament do we find such a designation 
applied to any locality but the well-known 
province of that name ; nor, if we interpret 


fairly the passage quoted by Hofmann from 
Tertullian (A pol. 21), Lactantius (iv. 19), and 
Chrysostom, are we able to find in them any 
allusion to a mountain called Galilee ; and 
surely it is not to be presumed that any- 
thing of a trustworthy nature can be learnt 
as to the existence of such a mountain from 
the confusions of a certain corrupt part of 
the text in the Hvang. Nicod. 14; see al- 
ready, Thilo, ad Cod. Apocr. I. p. 620 f. 
2 Comp. Schleiermacher, Z. J. p. 465 f. 


524 THE GOSPEL OF MATTHEW. 


Schweizer substantially concur, inasmuch as Keim, in particular, lays stress 
on the necessity of ‘‘such a telegram from heaven’’ after the extinction of 
Christ’s earthly nature, though he considers the question as to whether our 
Lord also communicated the form of the vision directly or only indirectly as 
of but secondary consequence. But all these attempts to treat what has been 
recorded as an actual fact, as though it were based merely on mental phenomena, 
are in opposition in general to the explicit and unhesiiating view of all the evan- 
gelists and apostles, as well as in particular to the uniform reference to the 
empty grave, and no less uniform use of the expression third day, all classical 
testimonies which can never be silenced. If, in addition to all this, it be 
borne in mind that the apostles found in the resurrection of their Lord a living 
and unfailing source of courage and hope, and of that cheerfulness with which 
they bore suffering and death,—that the apostolic church generally saw in it 
the foundation on which its own existence was based,—that Paul, in particular, 
insists upon it as incontrovertible evidence for, and as an azapyq of the resur- 
rection of the body (1 Cor. xv. 23; Rom. viii. 11), and as constituting an 
essential factor in man’s justification (Rom. iv. 25; Phil. iii. 10), though he 
is fond of speaking of being buried and raised up with Christ as descriptive of 
what is essential to the moral standing of the Christian (Rom. vi. 4; Col. ii. 
12), and can only conceive of the glorified body of the Lord, to which those of 
believers will one day be conformed (Phil. iii. 21), as no other than that which 
came forth from the grave and was taken up to heaven,—if, we say, this be 
borne in mind, not the shadow of an exegetical pretext will be left for con- 
struing the resurrection from the grave of one whose body was exempted from 
corruption (Acts ii. 31, x. 41) into something or other which might be more 
appropriately described as a resurrection from the cross, and which would there- 
fore require us to suppose that all the apostles and the whole church from the 
very beginning had been the victims of a delusion. See, in answer to Keim, 
Schmidt in the Jahrb. f. D. Theol. 1872, p. 413 ff. If this view of the resurrec- 
tion were adopted, then, in opposition once more to New Testament authority, 
we should have to identify it with the ascension (comp. on Luke xxiv. 51, 
Remark) ; while, on the other hand, it would be necessary to give up the 
Descensus Christi ad inferos as a second error arising out of that which has just 
been referred to, 


Ver. 11. Topevow dé ait] but while they were going away, to convey the in- 
telligence to the disciples, ver. 10. While, therefore, the women are still 
on their way, the soldiers in question repair to the city and report to the 
high priests what had happened. 

Ver. 12 ff. Suvaydévtec] Change of subject.’ — cuuBoir. te AaBdvrec] after 
consulting together, as in xii. 14, xxii. 15, xxvii. 1, 7. The conjunctive 
particle re has the same force as in xxvii. 48, and occurs nowhere else in 
Matthew ; found so much the more frequently in Luke’s writings, especially 
in the Acts. — apyipia] as in xxvi. 15, xxvii. 3, 5, 9. Silver pieces, a suffi- 
cient number of shekels. — eizare, x.7.A] an infelix astutia, ‘‘a miserable 
piece of cunning” (Augustine), seeing that they could not possibly know 
what had taken place while they were sleeping, — Ver. 14. éri rov jyeudvoc] 


1 Winer, p. 586 [E. T. 787]. 


CHAP NX XVIL,, 65.17; 525 
coram procuratore. axovew is not to be understood, with the majority of 
expositors, merely in the sense of : to come to the ears of, which is inadmis- 
sible on account of éxi (forin that case Matthew would have simply written 
kal éav aKovoy Tovro 6 iy., or used the passive with the dative) but im the judi- 
cial sense :* if this comes to be inquired into, if an investigation into this matter 
should take place before the procurator.?— jjyeic] with a self-important 
emphasis. Comp. ‘wae in the next clause. — reicouev airdv] we will persuade 
him, i.e., satisfy, appease him (see on Gal, i. 10), im order, that 1s, that he 
may not punish you ; see what follows. — duepiuvove] free from all concern 
(1 Cor. vii. 32), and, in the present instance, in the objective sense : free 
Srom danger and all unpleasant consequences.* — Ver. 15. d¢ dé vo. | as they 
had been instructed, Herod. iii. 134. — 6 26yoc obra] not : ‘the whole narra- 
tive” (Paulus), but, as the context requires (ver. 13), this story of the 
alleged stealing of the body. The industrious circulation of this falsehood is 
also mentioned by Justin.* For an abominable expansion of it, as quoted 
from the Toledoth Jeschu, see Eisenmenger’s entdeckt. Judenth. I. p. 190 ff. 
For 4 cfuepov juépa, see Lobeck, Paral. p- 534. 

Ver. 16. The eleven disciples, in accordance with the directions given 
them, ver. 10, proceeded to Galilee, to the mountain, etc. —oi éraéaro, 
k.7.2.] an additional particular as to the locality in question, which the 
women received, ver. 10, and had subsequently communicated to the 
disciples. The od, whi, is to be regarded as also including the preceding 
whither (to go and abide there), Luke x. 1, xxii. 10, xxiv. 28.° 

Ver. 17. "Idévrec, «.7.2.] According to the account now before us, evi- 
dently the jirst occasion of mecting again since the resurrection, and the 
Jirst impression produced by it—corresponding to the dpec%e of vv. 7, 10. 
See, besides, on ver. 10. — oi dé édicracav] It was previously said in a general 
way that the eleven fell prostrate before Him, though all did not do so: 
some doubted whether He, whom they saw before them, could really be 
Jesus. This particular is added by means of oi dé, which, however, is not 

receded by a corresponding oi yév before xpocexbvycav, because this latter 
applied to the majority, whereas the doubters, who did not prostrate them- 
selves, were only the exception. Had Matthew’s words been : 
vyoav, oi dé édicracav, he would thus have represented the eleven as divided 
into two co-ordinate parts, into as nearly as possible two halves, and so 
have stated something different from what was intended. This is a case 
precisely similar to that of the of 62 éppdmicav of xxvi. 67, where, in like 
manner, the preceding éxoAdgucav aitév (without oi uwév) represents what was 
done by the majority.° According to Fritzsche, a preceding of piv oi 


ot mév TpocEKd- 


1 John vii. 51; Xen. Cyrop. i. 2. 14, and 
frequently. 

2? Erasmus: “si res apud illum judicem 
agatur.”” Comp. Vatablus and Bleek. 

3 Herodian, ii. 4. 3. 

40. Tr. xvii. 108. 

5 Winer, p. 489 f. [E. T. 592]; Kiihner, II. 
1, p. 473. 

6“ Quibus in locis primum universa res 


ponitur, deinde partitio nascitur, quae 
ostendit, priora quoque verba non de uni- 
versa causa jam accipi posse,” *‘ In whatever 
places first a wniversal statement is made, 
thence a subdivision arises, which shows 
that the former words cannot possibly be 
accepted respecting universal cause,” Klotz, 
ad Devar. p. 358. Comp. Xen. Hell. i. 2. 14: 
w@xovTo es AekeAevav, ot 5 és Meéyapa ; Cyrop. 


526 THE GOSPEL OF MATTHEW. 
édioracay should be understood. This, however, is purely arbitrary, for the 
idicracav has its appropriate correlative already in the preceding zpocexbyyjcav. 
Again, as matter of course, we must not think of predicating the zpocext- 
ynoav of the doubters as well, which would be psychologically absurd (only 
after his doubts were overcome did Thomas exclaim : 6 kupid¢ pov x. 6 Bed¢ 
yov!). Fritzsche‘ attempts to obviate this objection by understanding 
édictaoov in a pluperfect sense (they had doubted before they saw Jesus) ; 
an expedient, however, of the same arbitrary natwe as before (comp. on 
John xviii. 24), and such as no reader of our passage (with spooekivyoav 
before him) would have suspected to be at all necessary. Others, in spite of 
the plain and explicit statements of Matthew, and in order to free the 
eleven from the imputation of doubt, have here turned to account the jive 
hundred brethren, 1 Cor. xv. 6 (Calovius, Michaelis, Ebrard, Lange), or the 
seventy disciples (Kuinoel), and attributed the édicracay to certain of these! 
Others, again, have resorted to conjecture; Beza, for example, thinks that 
for oi dé we might read ovdé ; Bornemann ® suggests : of dé diéoracav (some 
fell prostrate, the others started back from each other with astonishment). 
The doubting itself on the part of the disciples * is not to be explained by the 
supposition of an already glorified state of the body,* for after His resurrection 
Christ still retained His material bodily organism, as the evangelists are at 
some pains to remind us.° At the same time, it is not enough to appeal to 
the fact that ‘‘ nothing that was subject to death any longer adhered to the 
living One” (Hase), but, in accordance with the evangelic accounts of the 
appearing and sudden vanishing of the risen Lord, and of the whole rela- 
tion in which He stood to His disciples and His disciples to Him, we must 
assume some change in the bodily organism and outward aspect of Jesus, a 
mysterious transformation of His whole person, an intermediate phase of 
existence between the bodily nature as formerly existing and the glorified 
state into which He passed at the moment of the ascension,—a phase of 
existence, however, of which it is impossible for us to form any distinct 
conception, for this is a case where analogy and experience alike fail us. 
His body did not retain, as did those of Jairus’ daughter, the young man of 
Nain, and Lazarus, exactly the same essential nature as belonged to it 
before death, but still it was not as yet the caya rie S6Ene abrov (Phil. iii. 21), 
though it was certainly immortal, a fact which of itself would necessarily 
involve the very essential change which came over it ; comp. also Bleek. 
Ver. 18.° Ipoceadév] From feelings of modesty and reverence, the eleven 
had not ventured to go quite close to Him. — 20687] with all the emphasis of 





iv. 5. 46: opate immous, 6oor Huty maperory, ot 
é€ mpooayorta, ‘* You see the horses, as many 
as are with us; but others are being brought 
up,” and the passage in Pflugk, ad Hur. Hec. 
1160 ; Kiihner, II. 2, p. 808. 

1 Comp. Theophylact, Grotius, and Mark- 
land in Hur. Suppl. p. 326, 

2In the Stud. u. Krit. 1848, p. 126 (comp. 
Schleusner). 

3 Comp. Luke xxiv. 31, 37, 41; John xx. 


19, 26. 

4 Following the Fathers, Olshausen, 
Glockler, Krabbe, Kiihn, wie ging Chr. durch 
d. Grabes Thiir ? 1888; comp. Kinkel’s un 
scriptural idea of a repeated ascension to 
heaven, in the Stud. u. Krit. 1841, p. 597 ff. 

5 Luke xxiv. 39-43; John xx. 20, 27, xxi. 
5; comp. also Acts i. 21 f., x. 41. 

6 Comp. for ver. 18 ff., Theod. Schott in the 
Luther. Zeitschr. 1871, p, 1 ff, 


CHAP. SRVIILG 19. O27 


the conviction that He was triumphant at last : was given to me, cte., was 
practically given, that is, when the Father awoke me out of death. There- 
by His state of humiliation came to an end, and the resurrection was the 
turning-point at which Christ entered into the heavenly glory, in which He 
is to reign as xipsog rdvrwv till the time of the final surrender of His sway 
into the hands of the Father (1 Cor. xv. 28). It is true, no doubt, that when 
first sent forth by God He was invested with the é£ovgia over all things (xi. 
27 ; John xiii. 3) ; but in His state of cévwore it would, of necessity, come to 
be limited by the conditions of that human life into which He had descended. 
With His resurrection, however, this limitation was removed, and His é£ovc/a 
fully and absolutely restored, so that He once more came into complete 
possession of His premundane dda,’ the dda in which He had existed as the 
A6yo¢ acapkoc, and to which He was again exalted as the glorified Son of 
man.* — raoa éovaia] all authority, nothing being excepted either in heaven 
or earth which can be referred to the category of éfovcia. Some, unwarrant- 
ably interpreting in a rationalistic sense, have understood this to mean the 
‘* potestas animis hominum per doctrinam imperandi” (Kuinoel),—or, as 
Keim expresses it, the handing over to Him of all spirits to be His instru- 
ments in carrying out His purposes in the world,—or absolute power to 
make all necessary arrangements for the establishment of the Messianic 
theocracy (Paulus), or power over the whole world of hnmanity with a 
view to its redemption (Volkmar), and such like. What is really meant, 
however, is the munus regiwm of Christ, free from all limitation, without, 
however, compromising in any way the absolute supremacy of the Father.* 
Ver. 19. The oiv of the Received text (see the critical remarks) is a gloss 
correctly representing the connection of the thoughts. The fact stated in 
ver. 18 is itself the reason why all nations should be brought under His gov- 
ernment, and made subject to His sway by means of the padyrebew, ete. — 
padnreivoare| make them my padyrai (John iy. 1).4 This transitive use of the 
verb is not met with in classical Greek. Observe how here every one who 
becomes a believer is conceived of as standing to Christ in the personal 
relation of a yzadyric, in accordance with which view the term came to be 
applied to Christians generally. — rdvra ra é9vy] all nations without exception, 
XXvV. 32, xxiv. 14, xxvi. 13. With these words—and this is the new feature 
in the present instructions—the previous prohibition, x. 5, was cancelled, 
and the apostolic mission declared to bea mission to the whole world. On this 
occasion Jesus makes no mention of any particular condition on which Gen- 
tiles were to be admitted into the church, says nothing about whether it was 





or was not necessary that they should in the first instance become Jewish: 


proselytes (Acts xv. 1; Gal. ii. 1), though He certainly meant that it was 
not necessary ; and hence, because of this omission, the difficulty which the 
apostles had at first about directly and unconditionally admitting the Gen- 
tiles. If this latter circumstance had been borne in mind, it could hardly 


1 John xvii.5; Luke xxiv. 26; Phil. ii. 9 f.; 2 Comp. on John i. 14. 
Rom. xiy. 9; Eph. i. 20 ff., iv. 10; 1 Cor. xv. 3 John xiv. 28; 1 Cor. xv. 27, xi. 3. 
25 ff. 4 Comp. xiii. 52; Acts xiv. 21. 


528 THE GOSPEL OF MATTHEW. 
have been asserted, as it has been, that the special revelation from heaven, 
for the purpose of removing the scruples in question, Acts x., tells against 
the authenticity of the commission recorded in our passage.’ — Sarrifovrec, 
x.7.2.] in which the padyrevey is to be consummated, not something that must 
be done after the padnretoare,? as though our passage ran thus, pavyreboavrec 
... Barrifere. Besides, that the phrase Barrifovrec «.7.A., did not require in 
every case the performance of the ceremony by the apostles themselves, was dis- 
tinctly manifest to them in the discharge of their functions even from the 
first (Acts il. 41). — Barrifew cic] means to baptize with reference to. The par- 
ticular object to which the baptism has reference is to be gathered from the 
context. See on Rom. vi. 3, and thereon Fritzsche, I. p. 359 ; comp. also 
on 1 Cor. x. 2. Here, where the Barrifev cic 70 dvoua is regarded as that 
through which the vadyretew is operated, and through which, accordingly, 
the introduction into spiritual fellowship with, and ethical dependence upon 
Christ is brought about, it must be understood as denoting that by baptism 
the believer passes into that new phase of life in which he accepts the name 
of the Father (of Christ) and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit as the sum of his 
creed and confession. 7d évoua, because it is precisely the name of him whois 
confessed that expresses his whole specific relation considered by itself, and 
with reference to him who confesses, and accordingly the three names, 
‘‘Father, Son, and Spirit,” are to be understood as expressing the swm-total 
of the distinctive confession which the individual to be baptized is to ac- 
cept as his both now and for all time coming.* Consequently the Cor- 
inthians were not baptized cic rd dvoua TlabAov (1 Cor. i. 13), because it was 


1In answer to Credner, Hinleit. I. p. 203; 
Strauss, Keim. 

2 Hofmann, Schriftbew. Il. 2, p. 164; comp. 
also, on the other hand, Theod. Schott, p. 
18. 

8 Comp. also 1 Cor. i. 17. 

4 Had Jesus used the words 74 6vouara in- 
stead of 70 dvoua, then, however much He 
may have intended the names of three dis- 
tinct persons to be understood, He would 
still have been liable to be misapprehended, 
for it might have been supposed that the 
plural was meant to refer to the various 
names of each separate person. The singu- 
lar points to the specific name assigned in the 
text to each of the three respectively, so that ets 
70 dvoua is, Of course, to be wnderstood both 
before tod viod and tov aylov mvevpatos; 
comp. Rev. xiv. 1: 7d 6voza avtod Kat 7d 
We must beware of 
making any such dogmatic use of the singu- 
lar as to employ it as an argument either 
Jor (Basilides, Jerome, Theophylact) or 
against (the Sabellians) the orthodox doc- 
trine of the Trinity. Weshould be equally 
on our guard against the view of Gess, who 
holds that Christ abstained from using the 
words ‘‘of God the Father,” ete., because 
he considers the designation God to belong 


Ovo“a TOU TaTpdS avTOU,. 


to the Son andthe Holy Spirit as well. Such 
a dogmatic idea was not at all likely to be 
present to His mind upon an occasion of 
leave-taking like the present, any more than 
was the thing itself on which the idea is 
supposed to be based, for He was never 
known to claim the name @e0s either for 
Himself or for the Holy Spirit. Still the New 
Testament, z.e., the Subordination, view of 
the Trinity as constituting the summary of 
the Christian creed and confession dies at the 
root of this whole phraseology.—Observe, 
further, that the baptismal formula: *‘ in 
nomine,”’ and: “in the name,”’ rests entirely 
on a mistranslation on the part of the Itala 
and Vulgate, so that there is accordingly no 
ground for the idea, adopted from the older 
expositors, that the person who baptizes 
acts as Christ's representative (Sengelmann 
in the Zeitschr. f. Protestantism. 1856, p. 341. 
ff.), neither is this view countenanced by 
Acts x. 48. Tertullian (de bapt. 13) gives the 
correct rendering im nomen, though as early 
as the time of Cyprian (Zp. Ixxiii. 5) in 
nomine is met with. The practice of dipping 
three times dates very far back (being 
vouched for even by Tertullian), but cannot 
be traced to the’postolic age. 


CHAP. SX Vili. Oe 529 
not the name ‘‘ Paul,” but the name ‘‘ Christ,” that was to constitute the 
sum of their creed and their confession. Fora similar reason, when the 
Samaritans circumcised, they did so D3 WW Ow (see Schéttgen on the 
passage), because the name ‘‘ Gerizim” represented the specific point in 
their distinctive creed and confession (their shibboleth). The dedication of the 
believer to the Father, etc., is of course to be regarded as practically taking 
place in the course of the Barrifecy ei¢ 70 bvoua, x.7.4.3 for though this is not 
directly intimated by the words themselves,' it is implied in the act of bap- 
tism, and could have been expressed by the simple use of ci¢ (without rd 
évoua), asin 1 Cor. x. 2; Rom. vi. 3 ; Gal. iii. 27. Further, ei¢ ra dvoua is 
not to be taken as equivalent to ei¢ 70 dvoudevv,? as though the meaning of the 
baptism consisted merely in calling God the Father, Christ the Son, and the 
Spirit the Holy Spirit. Such a view certainly could not apply in the last- 
mentioned case, for, like Father and Son, 7d rveiua dyov must be under- 
stood to be a’ specifically Christian designation of the Spirit. 7d évoua is 
rather intended to indicate the essential nature of the Persons or Beings to 
whom the baptism has reference, that nature being revealed in the gospel, 
then expressed in the name of each Person respectively, and_ finally 
made the subject of the Christian’s confession and creed. Finally, in oppo- 
sition to the utterly erroneous view of Bindseil,* that Barrivew elie 7d dvowa 
means : to lead to the adoption of the name through baptism, 7.e., to get the 
person who is to be baptized to call himself after the particular name or 
names in question, see Fritzsche as above. But as for the view of Weisse* 
and of Volkmar, p. 629, as well, that Christ’s commission to baptize is entirely 
unhistorical, it is only of a piece with their denial of the actual bodily resur- 
rection of Jesus. Ewald, too,* is disposed to trace the origin of the commis- 
sion to the inner world of a later apostolic consciousness.—It isa mistake to 
speak of our passage as the formula of baptism ;° for Jesus is not to be under- 
stood as merely repeating the words that were to be employed on baptismal 
occasions (and accordingly no trace of any such use of the words is found in 


1Jn opposition to Hofmann, Schriftbew. 
II. 2, p. 163; Thomasius, Chr. Pers. u. Werk, 
It. 2, p. 12. 

2 Francke in the Stichs Stud. 1846, p. 11 ff. 

3 In the Stud. u. Krit. 1882, p. 410 ff. 

4 Evangelienfr. p. 186 f. 

5 Gesch. d. Apost. Zeit. p. 180. 

®Itis no less erroneous to suppose that 
our passage represents: the first institution 
of baptism. For long before this the disci- 
ples had been baptizing in obedience to the 
instructions of Jesus, as may be seen from 
John iy. 1 f., where baptism by the disciples 
is spoken of as tantamount to baptism by 
Jesus Himself, and where again there is as 
little reason to suppose the mere continua- 
tion of the baptism of John to be meant as 
there is in the case of our present, pas- 
sage (John iii. 5). In the passage before 
us we have the same commission as that 
just referred to, only with this difference, 


that it is now extended so as to apply to all 
nations. This at once disposes of the 
question as to whether baptism should not 
occupy merely a secondary place as a sacra- 
ment (Laufs in the Stud. wu. Krit. 1858, p. 
215 ff.). Comp. also, on the other hand, 1 
Cor. x. 1-8, where there is an unmistakable 
reference to baptism and the Lord’s Supper 
as the two great and equally important sac- 
raments of the Christian church. Of these 
two, however, it is clearly not the Lord’s 
Supper, but baptism, on whick the greatest 
stress is laid as forming the divine constitu- 
ent factor in the work of redemption, and 
that above all in the Epistles of Paul, in 
which the only instance of anything like a 
full treatment of the subject of the Lord’s 
Supper is that of First Corinthians, and 
even then it is of a somewhat incidental 
character. 


530 THE GOSPEL OF MATTHEW. 

the apostolic age ; comp. on the contrary, the simple expression : Barrifew el¢ 
Xpcorév, Rom. vi. 3; Gal. ili. 27 ; Barifew eic 7d 6voua X., Acts viii. 16, and 
ixt 7@ Ovéu. X., Acts ii. 38), but as indicating the particular aim and mean- 
ing of the act of baptism.’ The formula of baptism (for it was so styled 
as early as the time of Tertullian, de bapt. 13), which in its strictly literal 
sense has no bearing whatever upon the essence of the sacrament,” was 
constructed out of the words of the text at a subsequent period,* as was also 
the case, at a still later period, with regard to the baptismal confession of the 
three articles.* There is therefore nothing here to justify those who ques- 
tion the genuineness of our passage,° or those who of late have doubted 
its originality, at least in the form in which it has come down to us,*® and 
that because, forsooth, they have professed to see in it a torepov rpérepov. 
Exception has been taken, again, partly to the ravra ra E9vy, though it is 
just in these words that we find the broader and more comprehensive spirit 
that characterized, as might be expected, our Lord’s farewell commission, 
and partly to the ‘‘studied summary” (de Wette) of the New Testament 
doctrine of the Trinity. But surely if there was one time more than another 
when careful reflection was called for, it was now, when, in the course of this 
calm and solemn address, the risen Redeemer was endeavoring to seize the 
whole essence of the Christian faith in its three great leading elements as 
represented by the three substantially co-equal persons of the Godhead with 
a view to its being adopted as a constant oyueiov to be used by the disciples 
when they went forth to proclaim the gospel." The conjecture put forward 
by Keim,* that Jesus instituted baptism—though without any specific refer- 
ence to all nations— on the night of the last supper, to serve the purpose of a 
second visible sign of His continued fellowship with the church after His 
departure from the world, is inadmissible, because there is no trace of this 
in the text, and because, had such a contemporaneous institution of the two. 
sacraments taken place, it would have made so deep an impression that it 
could never have been forgotten, to say nothing of the impossibility of rec- 
onciling sucha view with John iv. 1 f. 

Ver. 20. Addoxovrec avtotc, x.t.A.] without being conjoined by «ai, there- 
fore not coordinate with, but subordinate to the Barrifovrec, intimating that 
a certain ethical teaching must necessarily accompany in every case the 
administration of baptism : while ye teach them to observe everything, etc. 
This moral instruction must not be omitted ° when you baptize, but it must 


1 See Reiche, de baptism. orig., etc., 1816, 
p. 141 ff. 

2 HOfling, I. p. 40 ff. 

3 See already Justin, Ap. i. 61. 

4 See Kollner, Symbol. d. Luth. K. p. 14 ff. 

5 Teller, Hxc. 2, ad Burnet de fide et officiis 
Christianorum, 1786, p. 262; see, on the other 
hand, Beckhaus, Aechth. d.s. g. Taufformel, 

794. 

6 Strauss, Bruno Bauer, de Wette, Witti- 
chen in the Jahrb. f. D. Theol. 1862, p. 336; 
Hilgenfeld, Volkmar, Scholten, Keim. 

7 Chrysostom: macayv civtopov SiSackadtay 


eyxetpnoas THy Sia Tov Bamtiouatos, *‘ haying 
put into their hands a complete summary of 
the doctrine, that expressed by the form of 
baptism.” 

8 TIT. p. 286 f. 

9 OK apket yap To Barticma Kat Ta S6ypata, 
mMpos owtypiav, el py Kal modALTeta mpocetn, 
“for baptism and the doctrines relating to 
salvation are not sufficient, unless govern- 
ment (that is the church) be added,” Euthy- 
mius Zigabenus, who thus admirably points 
out that what is meant by é:ddcKorTes, k.7.A., 
is not the teaching of the gospel with a 


CHAP, XXVIII., 20. 531 
be regarded as an essential part of the ordinance. That being the case, 
infant baptism cannot possibiy have been contemplated in Barrig., nor, of 
course, in rdvra 7. é0vy either. —xai idod, «.7.A.] Encouragement to execute 
the commission entrusted to them, ver. 19. — éyé] with strong emphasis : I 
who am invested with that high éfovcia to which I have just referred. — 
pe’ buov eiuc] namely, through the working of that power which has been 
committed to me, ver. 18, and with which I will continue to protect, sup- 
port, strengthen you, etc." The iveic¢ are the disciples to whom the Lord is 
speaking, not the church ; the present tense (not écowac) points to the fact of 
His having now entered, and that permanently, into His estate of exaltation. 
The promised help itself, however, is that vouchsafed by the glorified 
iedeemer in order to the carrying out of His own work (Phil. iii. 21, iv. 
13 ; Col. i. 29; 2 Cor. xii. 9), imparted through the medium of the Spirit 
(John xiv.-xvi.), which is regarded as the Spirit of Christ (see on Rom. 
viii. 9), and sometimes manifesting itself also in signs and wonders (Mark 
xvi. 20; Rom. xv. 19 ; 2 Cor. xii. 12; Heb. ii. 14), in visions and revela- 
tions (2 Cor. xii. 1; Acts xxii. 17). But in connection with this matter 
(comp. on xviil. 20) we must discard entirely the unscriptural idea of a sub- 
stantial whiquity (in opposition to Luther, Calovius, Philippi).?— rdcac r. 
nuép.| all the days that were still to elapse éw¢ 7. ovvted. Tov alavoc, i.e., untib 
the close of the current age (see on xxiv. 3), which would be coincident with 
the second advent, and after the gospel had been proclaimed throughout 
the whole world (xxiv. 14) ; ‘‘ continua praesentia,” ‘a continual presence,” 
Bengel. 


Remark 1.—According to John xxi. 14, the Lord’s appearance at the sea of 
Tiberias, John xxi., which Matthew not only omits, but which he does not seem 
to have been aware of (see on ver. 10), must have preceded that referred to in 
our passage. 

Remark 2.—Matthew makes no mention of the return of Jesus and His dis- 
ciples to Judaea, or of the ascension from the Mount of Olives; he follows a 
tradition in which those two facts had not yet found a place, just as they 
appear to have been likewise omitted in the lost conclusion of Mark ; then it so 
happened that the apostolic Ady:a terminated with our Lord’s parting address, 
ver. 19 f. We must beware of imputing to the evangelist any subjective 
motive for making no mention of any other appearance but that which took 


view to conversion. The axoy micrews (Gal. 
lii. 2) and the miatts €& axons (Rom. x. 17) are 
understood, as a matter of course, to have 
preceded the baptism. Comp. Theodor 
Schott, who, however, witaout being justi- 
fied by anything in the text, is disposed to 
restrict the dca éveterAau. duiv, on the one 
hand, to the instructions contained in the 
farewell addresses (from the night before 
the crucifixion on to the ascension), and 
Tnpeiv, on the other, to a faithful observance 
on the part of the convert of what he al- 
ready knew. Comp., on the contrary, xix. 
Lis JOHN: Xiv; do; 2d xv. 10/3) Lim: vic 14; 


TW ONN dH. Bit, ii, 22h vee fee Reve wll es 
xiv. 12; Eecclus. xxix. 1, in all which pas- 
Sages Tynpecv Tas evToAds Means Observe, i.e. to 
obey, the commandments. Adinirable, how- 
ever, is the comment of Bengel: ‘‘ Ut 
baptizatis convenit, fidei virtute, ‘as is prop- 
er for the baptized, by the power of faith.” 

1 Comp. Acts xviii. 10; 2Cor. xii. 9, 10. 

2 Beza well observes: ‘‘ Ut quicorpore est 
absens, virtute tamen sit totus praesentis- 
simus,”’ ‘“‘that He who is absent in body 
may nevertheless be wholly and perfectly 
present in efficacy.” 


532 THE GOSPEL OF MATTHEW. 


place on the mountain in Galilee ; for had he omitted and recorded events in 
this arbitrary fashion, and merely as he thought fit, and that, too, when dealing 
with the sublimest and most marvellous portion of the gospel narrative, he 
would have been acting a most unjustifiable part, and only ruining his own 
credit for historical fidelity. By the apostles the ascension, the actual bodily 
mounting up into heaven, was regarded as a fact about which there could not 
be any possible doubt, and without which they would have felt the second 
advent to be simply inconceivable (Phil. ii. 9, iii. 20; Eph. iv. 10; 1 Pet. iii. 
22; John xx. 17), and accordingly it is presupposed in the concluding words of 
our Gospel ; but the embodying of it in an outward incident, supposed to have 
occurred in presence of the apostles, is to be attributed to a tradition which 
Luke, it is true, has adopted (as regards the author of the appendix to Mark, 
see on Mark xvi. 19 f.), but which has been rejected by our evangelist and John, 
notwithstanding that in any case this latter would have been an eye-witness. 
But yet the fact itself that the Lord, shortly after His resurrection, ascended into 
heaven, and that not merely in spirit (which, and that in entire opposition to 
Seripture, would either exclude the resurrection of the actual body, or presup- 
pose a second death), but in the body as perfectly transformed and glorified at 
the moment of the ascension, is one of the truths of which we are also fully 
convinced, confirmed as it is by the whole New Testament, and furnishing, as it 
does, an indispensable basis for anything like certainty in regard to Christian 
eschatology. On the ascension, see Luke xxiv, 51, Rem. 


mOte Ora NDS 


A. 


Abraham, 37. 

Accountability, Moral, 244. 

Adultery, The law against, 129 seq. ; 
the ground for divorce, 339 seq. 

Advent of Christ, The Second, 303 
seq., 419 seq., 431 sea., 443 seq. 

Agony in the Garden, The, 472 seq., 
475 seq. 

Almsgiving, True and false, 142 seq. 

Amulets, 390. 

Anabaptists, and the civil oath, 134. 

Anointing of Jesus, The, 452 seq. 

Alphaeus, 1. 

Ambition, Spiritual, 354 seq. 

Angel, The, at Christ's sepulchre, 
520 seq. 

Angels, 98 ; guardian, 327. 

Anger, deserying of punishment, 126 
seq. 

Antipas, 68. 

Apostasy in the latter days, 411. 

Apostles, The, their commission, 206, 
209 ; their names, 207 seq. ; not to 
provide for themselves, 210 ; their 
boldness in preaching, 216. 

Archelaus, 68. 

Ascension of Christ, The, 532. 


B. 


Baptism, The, of John, 77 seq. ; of 
Christ by John, 83 seq., 89 seq. 

Baptismal Formula, The, 528, 

Barabbas, 497, 499. 

Bartholomew, 207. 

Bathsheba, 38. 

Beatitudes, The, 112 seq. 

Beelzebub, 215 ; not assisting Christ, 
239 seq. 

Benevolence, Christian, 
commended, 344. 

Bethany, 361. 

Bethlehem, 58 ; prophecy concerning, 
61 seq. ; its relation to Nazareth, 
70. 

Bethphage, 360 seq. 

Bethsaida, 229. 

Blessedness, Spiritual, 112, 116. 


165 seq. ; 


a 





Blasphemy, 242. 

Boaz, 38. 

Bridal Customs, 199. 

Brotherhood, with Christ, 248 seq. 
Building, on foundations, 169. 


O 


Caesarea, Philippi, 292. 

Caiaphas, 451 ; examines Christ, 480 
seq. 

Capernaum, 102 seq. ; upbraided by 
Christ, 229. 

Care, about earthly things, 152 seq. ; 
with anxiety, 155 seq. ; for food and 
raiment, 155. 

Casting pearls before swine, 163 seq. 

Centurion of Capernaum, The, 178 
seq. 

Charity, exercised, 138 ; commanded, 
344. 

Chastity, 340 seq. 

Children, Interest in, 
their exalted position, 
ceived by Christ, 342; 
Christ, 365 seq. 

Children in the Market Place, 226 
seq. ; of the Bride Chamber, 198 
seq. 

Chorazin, 229. 

Christ Jesus, His genealogy, 35 seq.; 
His name, 36; its use, 37; His 
Davidice descent, 44, 47; His mir- 
aculous conception, 45 seq.; His 
incarnation, 48; in prophecy, 51 
seq.; born of a virgin, 53 seq.; His 
retuge in Egypt, 65 seq.; home in 
Nazareth, 69 seq.; His baptism, 81 ; 
His judgment, 82; is baptized, 83 
seq., 89 seq.; as the Messiah, 84, 
184; His divinity attested, 86 seq., 
90 seq., 196, 277, 318, 366 seq., 526 
seq. ; tempted by the devil, 92 seq., 
98 seq., 108 seq.; retires into 
Galilee, 102; at Capernaum, 103 
seq., 178 seq.; begins His preaching, 
104 ; calls His disciples, 105 ; visits 
the synagogues, 106; His Sermon 
on the Mount, 112 seq., 169 seq.; 


324 seq. ; 
OA ene 
praising 


or 


His teachings, 173 ; heals the leper, 
175 seq.: also the Centurion’s 
servant, 180 seq.; cures Peter's 
wife’s mother, 181; heals many 
sick and possessed, 107 seq., 182 ; 
crosses Lake Tiberias, 182 ; His in- 
terview with a scribe, 182 seq.; as 
the Son of Man, 184 seq.; calms 
the sea, 186 seq.; heals the demoni- 
acs of Gadara, 188 seq.; returns to 
Capernaum, 194 ; heals the paralyt- 
ic, 195 seq. ; forgives sin, 195 seq.; 
calls Matthew, 196 ; eats with pub- 
licans and sinners, 197 seq.; as the 
bridegroom, 199; instructs as to 
fasting, 199 seq.; heals a woman, 
201: restores Jairus’ daughter, 202 ; 
heals the blind and the dumb, 203, 
230 ; commissions His apostles, 208 
seq., 527 seq.; receives the Baptist’s 
messengers, 220 seq.; proofs of His 
Messiahship, 221 \seq., 235 seq.; 
eulogy of John the Baptist, 222 seq.; 
criticises His generation, 226 seq., 
244 seq.; compared with John the 
Baptist, 226 seq.; upbraids the 
cities, 229 ; His prayer of thanks- 
giving, 230; invites the oppressed, 
231 ; discourses upon the Sabbath- 
day, 234; heals the man with the 
withered hand, 236 seq.; His uni- 
versal brotherhood, 248 seq. ; His par- 
ables about the kingdom, 251 seq.; 
returns to Nazareth, 263; is not 
honored by His own, 264 ; retires to 
the desert, 271 seq.; feeds the five 
thousand, 272 seq.; retires to pray, 
275 ; walks on the sea, 275 seq.; 
heals the sick in Gennesaret, 277 ; 
questioned by Scribes and Phari- 
sees, 279 seq.; condemns their 
teachings and practice, 282 ; retires 
towards Tyre and Sidon, 283 ; heals 
the daughter of the Syro-Phenician 
woman, 284 seq.; returns to Galilee, 
286; heals the multitudes, 286 ; 
feeds the four thousand, 287 seq.; 
tempted by Sadducees and Phari- 
sees, 290 seq.; crosses to the east 
side of the Lake, 291; comes to 
Caesarea Philippi, 292; asks His 
disciples’ confession, 292 seq.; as 
the Rock, 296 seq., 304 seq.; bestows 
authority upon Peter, 298 seq., 305 
seq.; predicts His own death and 
resurrection, 301 seq., 354; His 
return to judgment, 303 seq., 400 
seq., 419 seq., 443 seq.; is 
transfigured, 308 seq., 320; heals 
the lunatic, 314 seq.; returns to 
Capernaum, 316; pays tribute, 318 
seq.; teaches humility, 324, 356; 








54 TOPICAL INDEX. 


His immanence, 331 ; teaches for- 
giveness, 334 ; departs from Galilee 
to Jordan, 336; instructs upon 
marriage and divorce, 336 seq.; 
receives little children, 342 seq.; His 
interview with the young ruler, 342 
seq.; checks spiritual ambition, 354 
seq.; aS a ransom, 356; heals the 
blind men of Jericho, 357 seq.; His 
triumphal entry into Jerusalem, 360 
seq.; expels the money-changers, 
364 seq.; withers the fig-tree, 366 
seq.; confounds His questioners, 
368 seq.; defines duty to God and 
man, 378 ; answers the Sadducees, 
381 seq.; questions the Pharisees, 
385 seq.; His two-fold nature, 386 ; 
denounces the Seribes and the 
Pharisees, 388 seq.; bewails Jeru- 
salem, 399 seq.; foretells its destruc- 
tion and the end of the world, 404 
seq., 419 seq., 480 seq.; His self- 
limitation, 427 ; predicts the final 
judgment, 443 seq.; is anointed in 
Bethany, 452 seq.; keeps the Pass- 
over in Jerusalem, 458 seq.; insti- 
tutes the Lord’s Supper, 462 seq.; 
prays in Gethsemane, 472 seq.; is 
betrayed, 477 seq.; examined before 
Caiaphas, 480 seq.; confesses His 
Messiahship, 482 ; condemned by 
priest and people, 483 ; maltreated, 
483 seq.; denied by Peter, 484 seq. ; 
examined by Pontius Pilate, 490 ; 
scourged and crucified, 499 seq.; 
railed at, 506 seq.; His cry of 
abandonment, 508 seq.; His death, 
510; is buried, 514; His resurrec- 
tion, 520 seq., 523 seq.; meets the 
women, 522 ; His appearances there- 
after, 523 seq., 531 seq.; meets the 
eleven in Galilee, 525 seq.; imparts 
His final commands, 527 seq. 
Church, The, visible and invisible, 
258 ; built upon the Rock,296 seq., 
304 seq. ; its victory over Hades, 
297 seq. ; its discipline, 328 seq. 
Cloud, The, as a symbol, 309. 
Comfort, Spiritual, 114. 
Commandments, The, their obliga- 
tion, 343 ; the great, 383 seq. 
Conversion, The need of, 324. 
Compassionate, The, 114. 
Conduct, Rules of, 212. 
Confessing Christ, 216, 294 seq. 
Crown of Thorns, The, 500. 
Crucifixion of Christ, 501 seq. 


D. 
Darkness, The, at Christ’s crucifixion, 


507. 
David, 37. 


TOPICAL 


Deeapolis, 108. 

Decisiveness, fo the truth, 241. 

Decrees of God, The, 377; the pur- 
pose of, 397 seq. 

Defilement, Moral, 281 seq. 

Demoniacs, The, of Gadara, 189 seq., 
191 seq. 

Demons, and Demonology, 107 seq., 
189 seq., 208, 247 seq., 314 seq. 

Denarius, A, the value of, 333. 

Devil, The,94; in Christ’s temptations, 
98 seq.; his name applied, 215 ; not 
in Christ’s works, 239 seq. 

Discernment, of Christ, 195. 

Discipline, Church, 258; how to be 
adiministered, 328 seq. 

Disciples, The, as salt, 117 seq.; as 
light, 118 ; fruitful in good works, 
119; and the moral law, 125 seq.; 
their moral perfection, 140 ; their 
rules of conduct, 212 seq.; their re- 
ward, 218, 346 seq.; striving for 
the kingdom, 225; their favored 
position, 255 seq., 263 ; their eternal 
happiness, 261; confessing Christ, 
294 seq. ; exhorted to self-denial,303 ; 
lacking faith, 314 seq.; to be long- 
suffering, 328 ; their united prayers, 
331; to suffer bitter persecution, 
410 seq.; apostasy of some, 411; to 
watch and pray, 473 seq.; to be 
baptized and instructed, 528 seq. 

Discreprancy, between Matthew and 
John, 105 ; between Matthew and 
Luke, 200; between John and the 
Synoptists, 486. 

Disease, and Sin, 195. 

Divorce, 131 seq.; Christ’s teaching 
upon, 336 seq. 

Doubts, Spiritual, 221. 

Dreams, and visions, 49. 

Duty, Moral, 165 seq.; to God and 
earthly rulers, 380 seq. 


E. 


Earthquake, at Christ’s death, 510 
seq.; at Christ’s resurrection, 520 
seq. 

Economy, illustrated, 273, 285. 

Egypt, The flight to, 65 seq. 

Elias, The Coming of, 310 seq.; in 
Christ’s Transfiguration, 311 seq. 
End of the World, The, 407 seq., 413 

seq., 420 seq. , 430 seq. 

Epilepsy, 108. 

Essenes, The, 78. 

Eunuchs, 340 seq. 

Evil, overcome with good, 137 seq.; 
delivery from, 150 ; spirits of, 189 
seq. 

Excommunication, 330. 





INDEX. 


F. 


Faith, Illustrations of, 179 seq., 201 
seq., 277, 284 seq., 296; wanting in, 
186 seq., 277, 293, 314 seq.; its mar- 
vellous power, 315, 366 seq. ; exer- 
cised in love, 446 seq. 

False Teachers, 166 seq. 

Family, The, and Christ, 217. 
Fasting, True and false, 151 seq. ; 
private, 198 seq. ; its power, 315. 

Fatherhood, of God, 145 seq. 

Fear, of God, 216. 

Fidelity, enjoined, 429 seq. ; in the 
use of gifts, 440 seq. 

Fig-tree, The, 425. 

Fishing, with a hook, 319. 

Food, Daily, 148 seq., 158 seq. 

Forgiveness, of sins, 149 ; by Christ, 
195 seq. ; taught by a parable, 332 
seq. 

Fruits, Good, 167. 

Funeral Customs, 202. 


G. 

Gadara, 188. 

Galilee, Sea of, 105. 

Gehenna, The, 82; as punishment, 
127 seq., 334. 

Gennesaret, The Land of, 277. 

Gentiles, The, inheriting the king- 
dom, 180 seq. ; and the Jews, 285 
seq. ; invited to the kingdom, 377. 

Gerasa, 188. 

Gethsemane, 471 seq. 

Gifts, Fidelity in their use, 440 seq. 

God, His wrath, 79; His judgment, 
80 seq.; His providence, 97 seq., 
148 seq., 155 seq., 158 seq., 216 ; to 
be worshipped, 98; His love, 139 ; 
as Father, 145 seq.; His name holy, 
146 ; His will done, 147, 248 seq. ; 
His service, 155 ; answering prayer, 
164 seq.; the fear of, 216; His 
mercy, 328 ; His omnipotence, 345 ; 
His decrees, 377 seq. 

Golden Rule, The, 165 seq. 

Gospel, The meaning of the, 33 seq.; 
its superior claims, 186; its sup- 
port, 210 seq. ; its universal proc- 
lamation, 412. 

Gospels. The Synoptical, their mutual 
relationship, 19 seq.; theories of 
their origin, 20 seq. ; an original 
written Gospel, 21 ; an oral Gospel, 
22; one using the other, 23 seq. 

Grace, Free, 352. 


1si 


Hades, The gates of, 297. 
Heart, The, asthe seat of life, 244. 
Hermon, Mount, 308. 


36 


Herod Antipas, 68; imprisons John 
the Baptist, 269; beheads him, 
271. 

Herod the Great, 58; summons the 
Sanhedrim, 61; inquires of the 
Magi, 62; and the slaughter of the 
innocents, 66 seq. ; his death, 68. 

Herodians, The, 378 seq. 

Herodias, 268 seq. 

Hillel, 337. 

Holy Ghost, The, 81; descending 
upon Christ, 86 seq., 88 seq. ; sin- 

ning against the, 242 seq. 

Humility, illustrated, 179 seq., 324; 
enforced, 356. 

Husbandman, The Wicked, 369 seq. 

Hypocrisy, 143 seq. ; illustrated, 162 
seq., 166 seq. 


Ap 


Importunity, illustrated, 284 seq. 
Incarnation, The, of Christ, 48. 
Innocents, The slaughter of the, 67. 
Irony, 474 seq. 


Jairus, 200 seq. 

Jechoniah, 39, 41. 

Jerusalem, bewailed by Christ, 399 
seq.; its destruction, 415 seq., 430 
seq. 

jone The, cast out, 180 seq.; and 
Gentiles, 285 ; rejected, 371 seq. 

John, the Baptist, 72 seq.; preaches 
repentance, 73 ; announces the ad- 
vent of the Messiah’s kingdom, 74 ; 
his food and raiment, 76 seq.; his 
baptism, 77 seq.; baptizes Christ 
83 seq., 89 seq.; delivered to Herod, 
102 ; sends messengers to Christ, 
220 seq.; his doubts as to Christ's 
Messiahship, 221; as estimated by 
Christ, 222 seq.; as the end of O. T. 
prophecy, 226; compared with 
Jesus, 226 seq.; isimprisoned, 269 ; 
beheaded, 271; as Elias, 311. 

Jonah, 245; as a type, 246 seq. 

Joram, 39. 

Joseph, 40; his genealogy, 41 seq.; 
his relation to Christ, 44; as the 
betrothed of Mary, 49; receives a 
vision, 49 seq.; as the husband of 
Mary, 53 seq. 

Joseph of Arimathea, 513. 

Josiah, 39. 

Judas, 207. 

Judas Iscariot, betrays Christ, 455 ; 
his motives, 456; his treachery re- 
vealed, 459 seq.; performs the deed, 
477 seq.; repents and hangs him-: 
self, 490 seq. 


TOPICAL INDEX. 


Judgment, Self-righteous, 162 seq.; in 
the church, 258 ; final, 303 seq., 443 
seq.; Messianic, 372. 


K. 


Keys, The Power of the, 298 seq., 305 
seq., 330 seq. 

Kingdom of Heaven, The, 73 seq.; the 
possessors of, 113; prayer for its 
advent, 146 seq.; to be sought, 157 ; 
parables concerning the, 252 seq., 
375 seq., 437 seq.; classes in the, 
256 seq. ; the enemy of, 256, 260 
seq. ; the keys of, 298 seq., 305 seq. ; 
its consummation, 303 seq., 346 seq. ; 
rank in, 323 seq. ; and marriage, 
340 seq. ; the standard of, 224, 342. 

King’s Son, The Marriage of the, 375 
seq. : 

Kiss of Judas, The, 478. 


10 


Laborer, The, worthy of hire, 210 seq. 
Laborers in the Vineyard, 350 seq. 
Language, as a moral test, 244. 

Law, The, its fulfilment, 119 seq.; 
keeping and violating it, 124; its 
obligation, 343. 

Leaven, The Parable of the, 259. 

Lebbaeus, 207. 

Leprosy, 175 seq. 

Levi, or Matthew, 1 seq. 

Levirate Marriage, 381. 

Life, on what it depends, 95 ; its du- 
ration, 156; the way to, 166 seq.; 
eternal, how gained, 303, 342 seq. 

Light, as a symbol, 118. 

Lord’s Prayer, The, 144 seq., 158 seq. 

Lord’s Supper, The, instituted, 462 
seq. ; its meaning, 463 seq. ; doc- 
trinal views of, 465 seq., 467 seq. ; 
recent authorities upon, 467 seq. ; 
versions of institution, 469. 

Love, of our enemies, 137 seq. ; Chris- 
tian, 139 seq.; to Christ, 217; of 
God and man, 383 seq. ; its practi- 
cal exercise, 446 seq. ; and rever- 
ence, 454. 

Lunatic, The, healed, 314 seq. 

Lutheran Doctrine of the Lord’s Sup- 
per, The, 463 seq., 468 seq. 


M. 





Magdala, 288. 

Magi, The Visit of the, 57 seq. ; 
home of the, 58; their gifts, 63; 
the truth of the narrative, 64 seq., 
me 

Man, The good, and the Thief, 428 





seq. 
| Mark, The Gospel of, 27 seq., 29 seq. 


TOPICAL 


Marriage, Christ’s teachings upon, 336 
seq. ; customs, 375 seq., 438 seq. ; 
the law of levirate, 381 ; in heaven, 
382 seq. 

Mary, The Virgin, her descent, 43 seq., 
46 seq. ; her virginity and mother- 
hood, 53 seq. ; her family, 248 seq. ; 
at the cross, 513. 

Mary Magdalene, 453; at the cross, 
513. 

Matthew, The Apostle, his parentage, 
1; his life and death, 2; called asa 
disciple, 196. “ 

Matthew, The Gospel of, its origin, 2 
seq. ; written in Hebrew, 3 seq. ; its 
identity with the Greek, 8, seq. ; a 
collection of sayings, 11 seq. ; 
adopted by Nazarenes and Ebion- 
ites, 13; textual difference between 
Matthew and Luke, 15 ; itsreaders, 
16 seq. ; its object, 17 ; its principal 
sections, 18; the time of its com- 
position, 18 seq. ; locality of its com- 
position, 18 seq.; its relationship to 
Mark and Luke, 19 seq. ; genuine- 
ness of first and second chapters, 
56 seq. 

Meek, The, 114. 

Merey, 114 seq.; rather than sacrifice, 
235 seq. 

Merit, Human, 352. 

Messiah, The, 293. 

Messiahs, False, 408, 417 seq. 

Messianic Kingdom, The, 73 seq. ; 
the conditions of, 112 seq. ; prayer 
for its advent, 146 seq. ; its pleas- 
ures, 180 seq. ; the Baptist’s view 
of, 221 seq.; the standard of, 224 ; 
struggling for, 225 ; revealed to the 
humble, 230 ; parables concerning, 
252 seq., 375 seq., 437 seq.; classes 
in the, 256 seq. ; the enemy of, 256, 
260 seq. ; its fulfilment, 303 seq., 
346 seq., 413 seq. ; rank in, 323 
seq. ; eating the Passover in, 470. 

Miracles of Christ : cleansing of the 
leper, 175 seq. ; healing of the Cen- 
turion’s servant, 180 seq. ; Peter’s 
wife’s mother healed, 181; calms 
the sea, 186 seq. ; heals the demo- 
niacs of Gadara, 188 seq. ; the par- 
alytic healed, 195 seq.; the bloody 
issue cured, 201; Jairus’ daughter 
raised, 202 ; the blind men restored, 
203; the dumb man healed, 203 ; 
the withered hand restored, 236 
seq. ; heals the blind and dumb, 
239; the feeding of the five thou- 
sand, 272 seq.; His walking on the 
sea, 275 seq. ; healing the daughter 
of the woman of Canaan, 284 seq. ; 
the feeding of the four thousand, 








INDEX. 537 


287 seq. ; the lunatic healed, 314 
seq.; the fish with the tribute 
money, 318 seq.; the two blind 
men of Jericho restored, 357: the 
fig-tree cursed, 366 seq. 

Misery, Spiritual, 204. 

Moneychangers, The, 364 seq. 

Morality, Christian, 136 seq. 

Moses, in Christ’s Transfiguration, 
311 seq. 

Mount of Beatitudes, The, 111. 

Murder, The law against, 126 seq. 

Mustard-seed, The Parable of the, 258. 


N. 


Names, Changing of, 1. 

Nature, and Providence, 155 seq. ; 
convulsions of, at Christ’s death, 
510 seq. 

Nazareth, 68 seq. ; 
Bethlehem, 70 seq. 

Net, The Parable of the, 262 seq. 


O. 


its relation to 


Oaths, 1383 seq. - 
Offenses, to be punished, 326. 


Ae 


Papias, his work and testimony, 9 seq., 
27 seq. 

Parables, 252; why used, 253 seq., 
255, 265 seq. 

Parables of Christ, The : the Physi- 
cian, 197 seq. ; the Children of the 
Bride Chamber, 198 seq. ; the New 
Patch, 199 seq. ; the New Wine, 199 
seq.; the Children in the Market 
Place, 226 seq.; the Sower, 251 
seq., 256 seq. ; the Tares, 257 seq., 
260 seq. ; the Mustard-Seed, 258 ; 
the Leaven, 259 ; the Hid Treasure, 
262; the Pearl of Great Price, 262 ; 
The Net, 262; the Unmerciful Ser- 
vant, 332 seq. ; the Laborers in the 
Vineyard, 350 seq. ; the Two Sons, 
368 seq. ; the Wicked Husbandman, 
369 seq. ; the Marriage of the King’s 
Son, 375 seq. ; the Ten Virgins, 437 
seq. ; the Good Man and the Thief, 
428 seq. ; the Talents, 439 seq. 

Passover Festival, The, 451; kept by 
Jesus and His disciples, 458 seq. ; 
the ceremonial meal, 461 seq. ; the 
new, 470. 

Patch, The New, 199 seq. 

Peacemakers, The, 115. 

Pearl of Great Price, The, 262. 

Perjury, The Law against, 133 seq. 

Penny, A, the value of, 333. 

Persecution, 116; of the Apostles, 
213 ; at the end, 410 seq. 


038 


Peter, Simon, called as an apostle, 
105; his rank, 206, 297, 331; walks 
upon the sea, 277 ; confesses Christ, 
294 ; as the rock, 296 seq., 304 seq. ; 
receives authority, 298 seq., 305 
seq. ; pays tribute, 318 seq.; re- 
buked as Satan, 302 seq. ; his de- 
nial foretold, 471; uses the sword, 
478 seq. ; his denial of Christ, 484 
seq. 

Pharisees, The, 78 ; invited to repent- 
ance 80; their righteousness, 124 
seq. ; their hypocrisy, 143 seq., 280, 
394 seq. ; destitute of love, 235; 
condemned, 244 seq., 292, 388 seq. ; 
asking for a sign, 245 seq., 290; as 
blind leaders, 282 ; their traditions, 
279 seq. ; tempting Christ, 290 seq., 
378 seq. 

Phoenicia, 284. 

Physician, The, 197 seq. 

Pilate, 496; receives his wife’s mes- 
sage, 497; releases Barabbas, 499 ; 
washes his hands, 498 seq. ; con- 
demns Christ, 499 seq.; delivers 
Christ’s body to be buried, 513; 
sets a watch at His tomb, 516 seq. 

Poor, The, 112. 

Potter’s Field, The, 492 seq. 

Prayer, posture of, 143; true, 144; 
the Lord's, 144 seq., 158 seq. ; com- 
manded 164 seq., 473 ; in solitude, 
275 ; its power, 315, 367; united, 
331 ; Christ’s prayer in Gethsemane, 
472 seq. 

Profession, and practice, 166 seq. 

Prophecy, fulfilment of, 51 seq., 69 
seq., 75 seq., 103 seq., 182, 184 seq., 
221, 223, 238 seq., 254 seq., 260, 
281, 362, 364 seq., 409, 414 seq., 
479, 493 seq. 

Proselytes, The baptism of, 77; the 
making of, 392. 

Providence, of God, The, 97 seq., 
155 sea. 

Punishment, 258; at the end of the 
world, 261, 263; in the Gehenna, 
127 seq., 334; of the unfaithful, 
430; of eternal duration, 447. 

Purity, Moral, 115. 

Phylactervies, 390. 


Q. 


Quakers, and the civil oath, 134. 
Quarantania, 93. 


R, 


Race animosity, 284 seq. 
Rachel, the mourning of, 66. 
Rahab, 38. 

Rama, 66. 





TOPICAL INDEX. 


Reason, Human, 153 seq. 

Recompense, Spiritual, 218; in 
Christ’s kingdom, 346 seq. 

Reconciliation, 128. 

Renovation, Spiritual, 199. 

Repentance, 73; demanded by the 
Baptist, 80 ; by Christ, 324. 

Resurrection The,of Christ, predicted, 
301 seq., 471; and marriage, 382 seq. 
of the dead, 382 seq. ; of the elect, 
424 seq.; of the O. T. saints at 
Christ’s death, 511; His resurrec- 
tion accomplished, 520 seq., 531 
seq. 

Retaliation, 136 seq. 

Retribution, Divine, 303 seq., 419. 

Revelation, Divine, 294 seq. 

Reverence, Parental, 280; and love, 
454, 

Rich Man, The, and salvation, 344 
seq. 

Righteousness, 85; desire for, 114; 
in Christ, 116; false and genuine, 
124 seq. ; to be sought, 157 seq. ; 
of Christ, 197 seq. ; its moral basis, 
376. 

Ruler, Young, The, 342 seq. 

Ruth, 38. 


S. 


Sabbath-Day, The, 234 seq. ; healing 
on, 236 seq. ; its rest, 416. 

Sacrifice, true, 128 seq. 

Sadducees, 78 ; invited to repentance, 
80 ; tempting Christ, 290 seq., 381 
seq. ; denounced, 388 seq. 

Salathiel, 40. 

Salome, 270; presents her request, 
354; at the cross, 5138. 

Salt, its symbolic use, 117 seq. 

Samaritans, The, 209. 

Sammai, 337. 

Sanhedrim, The, 60; summoned by 
Herod, 61; call Christ to account, 
367 seq. ; conspire against Christ, 
480 seq., 489. 

Scriptures, The, how quoted, 94 seq. 

Self denial, 130 seq.; enjoined, 136 
seq., 166; alaw of the kingdom, 303 ; 
rewarded, 346 seq. 

Self-mortification, 326. 

Self-righteousness, 163 seq. 

Sermon on the Mount, The, 111 seq., 
169 seq. 

Service, single-hearted, 154 seq. 

Sheep, Lost, Parable of the, 327 seq. 

Shekels, 455 seq. 

Shewbread, The, 234 seq. 

Sick, The, possessed of demons, 107 
seq. 

Simon of Cyrene, 501 seq. 

Simon the Canaanite, 208. 


TOPICAL 


Sin, and sickness, 195 ; the unpardon- 
able sin, 242 seq. ; remitted by God, 
334, 

Son of Man, The, 184 seq. 

Sons, The Two, 368 seq. 

Soul, The, its worth and loss, 303. 

Sower, The, 251 seq. 

Star of Bethlehem, ‘The, 59 seq. 

Stone Rejected, The, 371. 

Substitution, of Christ for sinners, 
356, 

Sufferers, Spiritual, 113 seq. 

Superscription of the Cross, The, 505. 

Swearing, 133. 

Synagogues, The, 106. 


T. 


Tabor, Mount, 308. 

Talent, A, the value of, 332. 

Talents, The, 439 seq. 

Tares, The, 257 seq., 260 seq. 

Taxes, Roman, 316 ; temple, 317. 

Teachers, Spiritual, the want of, 204. 

Temple, The, its magnificence, 405 ; 
its destruction foretold, 406 seq. 

Temptation, 149 seq. ; from others, 
326. 

Temptations of Christ, The, 92 seq., 
98 seq., 108 seq. ; the first, 94 seq. ; 
the second, 96 seq. ; the third, 97 


seq. 
Thaddaeus, 207. 
Thamar, 37. 
Threshing of grain, 82. 
Time, Roman division of, 275. 
Tithing, 393 seq. 
Traditions, 279 seq. 
Transfiguration of Christ, 308 seq., 320 


seq. 





INDEX. 539 


Treasure, Hid, The Parable of the, 
262. 

Treasures, on earth, 152 ; in heaven, 
153, 344. 

Tribute, The duty of paying, 378 seq. 

Trust in God, 157 seq. 


U. 


Unbelief, its weakness, 315. 
Unmerciful Servant, The, 332 seq. 
Unpardonable Sin, The, 242 seq. 


Ve 
Veil, The rending of the, 511. 
Virgins, The Ten, 437 seq. 
Visions, and dreams, 49, 91. 


W. 


Wages for work, 351 seq. 

Washing, of hands, 279 seq. 

Watchfulness, enjoined, 429, 437 seq., 
473. 

Wealth, Striving after, 152 seq. ; and 
salvation, 344 seq. 

Weather, signs of, 290 seq. 

Wedding-Garment, The, 376. 

Will of God, The, 147; doing, 167. 

Wine, The New, 199 seq. 

Wisdom, and her children, 227 seq. 

Woes against Scribes and Pharisees, 
388 seq. 

Woman, and genealogies, 37 seq. 

Women, The, at the cross, 512 seq. ; 
at the sepulchre, 519 seq. 

Works, Good, 167. 

Wrath of God, The, 79. 


Z. 
Zacharias, the murder of, 398. 


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